Chapter Summary: She finally said it. She said she loves me. I thought she didn't, but she's saying she does. She's holding my hand in her soft, warm hand. Wait. Why are we floating above the snow? Why doesn't her hand feel cold?


"Lillian."

I opened my eyes, and sat up from the bed. A voice had just called me from outside, but unlike that horrible dream I had before, this wasn't a nothing of a whisper. No, it was a musical voice. Feminine and beautiful but also strong and clear.

"Lillian," the voice called again. I looked outside beyond the door swung wide open. The moon must have been out and full, because you know how one those bright, clear, cold winter nights the moon is bright enough to read by? It was that bright.

"Lillian, arise."

Either I didn't sleep much at all, or I must have slept through the night and into the next night, because I felt so awake, so alive. I got right up from the bed and walked out the door.

I had never done that before. Whenever I woke up before, I always had to claw my way out of bed ... that is, after I squeezed as much sleep as I could from the few minutes that Pa called me the first time to the commanding bark he gave saying that told me it was really time to get going.

He always had the coffee poured when I finally dragged myself to the kitchen for breakfast. Pa was a morning person. He always looked raring to go. I hated that, so we had an agreement: I wouldn't snap at him (which I never would do, anyway) so long as he didn't talk to me after I had started my second cup of coffee. That way he got his eggs on his plate, and not poured into his lap. The agreement worked well for both of us.

But now I just walked right out the door, toward the sound of the voice, even before I realized two things:

The first thing I realized was that the voice called me, and I went. I didn't even find it odd that I was called by name, and that name was 'Lillian.' It was if my body knew that was my name. I hadn't heard anyone call me 'Bella' in such a long time, and Rosalie had been saying 'Li-..'-this and 'Li-...'-that ... along with the realization from last night ... that I just somehow knew that I was being called.

The other thing I realized was this.

It must have been cold outside. You know: that cool, crisp air that froze my eyeballs off? The air that I needed layers and layers of clothes that stifled me inside to be able to handle? It was here. I didn't feel cold, though, even though I was in PJs only.

I was also walking along in bare feet ... on top of the snow.

In fact, my whole posture had changed: my shoulders were thrown back. My head was erect and looking forward, not down. My feet didn't plod; they glided.

Just like ...

"Lillian," It was Rosalie's voice calling to me. That's what the voice was: Rosalie's. I turned my head in the direction from which I knew it came and walked, no, glided, toward it; toward the sound of water. My mind whirled, trying to grasp what was happening as my feet brought me, independent of conscious supervision, toward Rosalie.

She was standing by a large pine tree, the river not too far beyond her, looking at me, filled with expectation, as I approached her quickly and smoothly ... and gracefully.

She was so beautiful. She was limned in light, and seemed to be basking in the glow of the moonlight.

No, that's not quite right. She, and everything, was in the bright moonlight, but light seemed to be falling into her. It was reflected off her perfectly smooth skin of her face and bare arms, but the light also seemed to be somehow falling into her as well, so that she glowed inside with the light that she absorbed as she glowed outside with the light she reflected.

She was wearing ...

... does it really matter what she was wearing?

It didn't matter, because as I came up to her, she broke into a huge smile that was pleased and contented but at the same time joyful and triumphant.

What she was wearing was that smile that blinded me with its brilliance. What she was wearing was this indescribably aura of victorious delight and delighted victory.

I came to rest right in front of her. That was another odd thing. When I was moving, I felt still, and when I came to a stop, I didn't feel the need to fidget. When I stopped, everything in me stopped, waiting, expectant, but ... still. Absolutely, utterly, ... powerfully ... still.

Rosalie gravely, slowly, carefully, took my hands in hers, holding my fingers in her closed palms. You could say the gesture was dainty or lady-like, but it might have been that, but it was really more like ...

It was really more like tender.

"Oh, Lillian," Rosalie sighed, "you are so beautiful!"

My eyes widened in shock, because those were the exact words I was thinking when I looked at her now: glowing, limned in light, happy, joyful and at peace.

I opened my mouth to correct her, but the only thing I did was to gasp, because faster than lightning, Rosalie was speeding toward me and then grasping me in an open arm embrace.

And I saw it all happen. She didn't blur. Just the opposite, it was if time slowed, and I saw her hair feather back as she sped through the air toward me. I saw her shift her hands and arms, and instead of being caught by surprise, I anticipated her action with my own. I saw her face come to mine, and felt her cheek press against mine, and I felt the smoothness of it, but I also felt its softness.

She dipped her head down to my neck, and she breathed in deeply.

But, unlike before, where she would gasp in pain or sigh longingly, she breathed me in slowly and luxuriously, and as she breathed me in, I dipped my own head to her perfect neck and did the same, reveling that perfect admixture of honeysuckle and rose that now smelt better than ever before, but not with a pull or compulsion to it. No, it was just right. It was her. It was happiness, joy and peace. It was perfect: it was just for me.

"Ah!" she sighed contentedly.

"You smell so wonderfully good!" she murmured emphatically.

She pulled away from our embrace ... our embrace because my arms had naturally wrapped around her and hers wrapped around me ... and rested her arms on my shoulders, looking deeply into my eyes.

She brought her hand up to my face and rubbed the back of it against my cheek.

I looked at her in askance and with a little bit of wonder at the joy that just seemed to be pulsing within her.

"I thought I would miss it, but I don't at all," she said to me. "Not at all."

I raised my eyebrow. What didn't she miss?

I opened my mouth to ask her: "Ro-..."

But then I stopped.

What came out of my mouth was not my voice. It was somebody else's voice. It was a Greta Garbo voice. It was deep, resonant, rich and compelling.

It was musical.

I swallowed, breathed in another breath of her, and, pressing through my confusion, asked more firmly: "What don't you miss?" My voice was a symphony.

"I don't miss your blush," she said, smiling at me, and stroked my cheek again.

It was then that I realized that I would have been blushing at her touch that was so intimate in its tenderness ... but I wasn't.

I looked at Rosalie smiling at me, glowing in the moonlight. I experienced and felt and heard everything that was happening, but I just couldn't process it.

I carefully brought my hand up to her cheek, feeling the softness and smoothness of it.

I put my hand to my own cheek, and felt the same softness, the same smoothness.

Rosalie nodded at me, smiling.

I touched her cheek with the back of my hand. It was warm. It was just warm. It wasn't cold and electric and warm and tingling.

It was just warm ... as in the same warmth as my skin.

I turned my hand and cupped her cheek with it. Her cheek was marble smooth but soft and pliant and yielding, but I could still feel the impenetrability and strength of it now as well.

Rosalie closed her eyes and leaned her face into my hand.

"Ah, Lillian!" she sighed happily.

"What happened?" I whispered so quietly, but still the musicality of my voice came out with my whisper.

Rosalie opened her eyes and looked at me seriously. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know," she repeated sincerely. "All I know is that you are like this ... you are like me now. We are equals. We are the same." She grew more and more serious, more and more determined, but it did not take away from her inner joy.

"And so now I don't need to hide what I've been wanting to say to you for so long," she said. "And so now I can tell you."

I felt the weight of her words like electricity in the air, but my heart wasn't beating a million times a minute. I now realized that it wasn't beating at all. And I felt the electric excitement and anticipation in the words that I hoped to hear from her ... that I knew she would say ... but I also felt a peaceful assurance, a stability, a calm ... my emotions weren't controlled by my bodily reactions anymore, and my body didn't react to emotions. I felt excited and calm. I felt peaceful and sure.

"What is it that you have to say to me, Rosalie?" I asked quietly, marveling at the calm and strength in my now pure voice.

Rosalie wrapped me again in a very powerful embrace that I had seen crush a tree, but gave me no discomfort whatsoever.

I felt quite the opposite of discomfort, in fact.

"Lillian," Rosalie said, whispering in my ear as she held me tightly, then she pulled back and looked right into my eyes, and she said it: "I love you."

That's when I realized what was happening.

"This is a dream," I sang out in despair, "This is another stupid dream!"

"It's not a dream, Lillian," she kept saying my name. She kept saying it, claiming it, but saying it so easily and naturally, "for our kind does not sleep. We do not dream. This is real. I'm really saying this to you. I love you, Lillian, now and forever."

"Rosalie, please, I want to believe," she looked at me with wide-open eyes filled with sincerely, "but I know it's a dream. I just know it!"

"No, it's not," she said so calmly, "My love is real, Lillian. I love you."

"God! Rosalie, I'm scared!" The voice coming out of my mouth was so calm, but it was also filled with purpose: "I want to believe you, but if I do, and I wake up ... I won't be able to stand it. I won't. Please kill me if this is a dream, and I wake up from it. Because I can't live with one more heartbreak like this."

"Lillian," she explained patiently, lovingly, "I can't kill you anymore; nothing can, for now you are eternal."

"Just promise me, Rosalie."

Rosalie looked at me from arms' length, put her smooth and warm hand to my cheek, smiled tenderly, and said: "I promise, my love."

"Now I know it's a dream," I said accusingly, "because you said you only may make one promise forever."

"I promised you that I would try to tell you when I killed you, Lillian," she said solemnly, "but now you cannot die, so I can make this new promise," and she smiled.

"... to kill me if I'm dreaming," I confirmed.

She nodded.

"... but I can't die," I confirmed again.

She smiled.

"See," I said, "I knew I was dreaming. You would only love me if I were dreaming!"

"Lillian," Rosalie sighed happily, "do you wish for me to prove that you aren't dreaming?"

I was about to demand how she could possibly do that.

But before I could make that demand, she wrapped my head in her arms, and her face rushed toward me.

"Ro-..." my shout of surprise was silenced by her lips.

I pulled back in shock, pushing at her shoulders with my hands. I found that I could pull back from what was before an impossibly strong grasp. But Rosalie pressed into my withdrawal, stepping between my stance and keeping her lips, not demandingly, but firmly pressed to mine. I looked at her. Her eyes were closed, and her face was serene, composed, happy.

I dropped my hands, melting into her kiss, surrendering to her, closing my eyes, feeling the moment, together, with her.

She didn't break off her kiss, she held my head in her arms, and her lips were pressed devotedly to mine.

That's when I realized that is was real. This wasn't a dream. She was really kissing me. She did really love me.

I gasped into her kiss, and my arms wrapped around her shoulders, holding onto her tightly, pulling me to her and her to me, and I returned her kiss with my own.

We held that kiss, each to each other, forever and a day.

...

Eventually, she pulled back.

She breathed out: "Lillian, I love you."

She looked so intensely into my eyes, waiting, expectant.

It was my turn. I knew that, but my throat closed up into a tight knot, sealing my voice in my chest. It was my turn, but I literally choked under the pressure. I broke contact with her eyes and looked at the ground.

Rosalie shifted. She dropped her arms from my shoulders, but put her hand into mine.

"It's okay, sweetheart," she said, understandingly. "Too much is happening at once for you. I know: I've been there. You don't have to say anything now. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. We have all the time in the world now. We have all the time in the world."

As she said this, she walked me along the riverbank, holding my hand in hers. She held it lightly, as if she were saying that I could take my hand away if I wanted to, but she was here for me, right now, and always, if I wanted that. She gave everything of herself to me, and expected nothing from me in return.

"Rosalie ..." I whispered, my eyes still cast down.

She stopped and turned to me.

"I..." I said.

She waited.

"I loooo-ahh..." I whispered so softly that the quiet breeze over the snow was louder.

But she heard me.

I looked up into her eyes, and I could see her holding in her excitement and expectation and hope.

For me.

"Rosalie ..." I said into those hopeful eyes.

"Rose," I corrected, and the smiled that she was suppressing was twitching her lips upward, escaping from her iron control.

"I love you," I said. "I love you, Rose. I love you."

And I did. I felt my whole body change, as if a heavy weight was lifted off my chest, and I could breathe again. It was if something that was tearing me limb from limb relented, and my arms and legs were glad to find themselves back on me. It was if I had died and was now reborn. It was if I had nothing before, and now I had everything. I love her.

I love her.

And that's all that mattered, and that's all that ever would.

And Rosalie was smiling a smile so bright that the sun itself couldn't brighten this patch of earth if it had replaced the brightest moon that had ever been.

"Good," Rosalie said easily, smiling lightly.

She turned, keeping her hand in mine, and we continued our walk along the riverbank.

"Lovely night, isn't it?" She asked this casually as if this were the most natural thing in the world, but I heard just the slightest hint of pure joy underlying her question.

"Yes, Rose," I whispered to her and stopped, looking at the pure beauty that was her. "It's a lovely night."

She looked back at me and smiled.

"Did you wish to keep walking, or was there anything else you wished to do?" she asked.

"We could do nothing ..." I suggested and blinked at her.

"Oh, Lillian," Rose exclaimed, "I just cannot resist that come hither look those big doe eyes of yours are giving me!" She was smiling hugely, practically vibrating in place.

I looked for a few seconds at her just standing there.

"So why're you resistin'?" I drawled.

I could not believe it! My voice was all sultry and provocative! I would've died with embarrassment if this had been me earlier tonight.

But it wasn't earlier tonight. It was not. I didn't blush. No, it was Rose who gasped, and then closed the distance between us, her lips crashing into mine. She wrapped me in a desperate, needy embrace, as her lips fought to kiss me harder.

Let me just say that if she thought she was kissing me hard, she had another thing coming: me. I grasped her with all my might and returned her kiss with my own, fighting to show my love for her harder than she was for me.

I think we both won this struggle to outdo each other, although I wouldn't have minded if I lost, either. I wouldn't mind if she loved me more, not that it would be true, but if she wanted to show me, then it was fine by me. I wouldn't mind losing the "who loves who more" game with Rose.

Not one bit.

Rose eventually pulled away.

"Hey!" I complained lazily, "Why're you pulling back?"

"Oh, Lillian," she sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I would love to make this moment forever, but ..."

"But I'm thinking about you." She looked at me with concern.

"Well, then, come here," I said, giving her what she called my come hither look. I swear, I love her to death, but that girl just worried too much about everything.

"I would, but ..." she looked torn.

"But?" I asked confused.

"But ... aren't you ... thirsty?" she asked, looking at me cautiously.

I suddenly realized, that, no, I wasn't thirsty. I was parched! For the second time, my throat closed, and it felt absolutely dry. I swallowed, hard.

That made it worse, so much worse. The saliva went down my throat, but it felt like gasoline, ... ignited gasoline.

I howled and dove to the edge of the river.

"That's not going to ..." Rosalie shouted after me, but I wasn't listening. I plunged my head in the water, and I couldn't help but notice that it had an odd look and smell to it, but I didn't care. I had to put out the fire in my throat, so I drank deeply, swallowing a gulp, then swallowing another before I registered the taste.

It tasted like motor oil and grease. And how it felt, the water? It felt like I was swallowing lead pellets in buck shot.

I snapped my head out of the river, spitting out as much of that contaminated water as I could, but there were now big lumps of it going down my throat already, settling in my stomach. It wasn't painful. It didn't hurt, but they just stayed there, not being absorbed at all, forming uncomfortable balloons of liquid in my stomach.

I looked to Rose and whimpered. My throat was on fire, but the uncomfortable displacement in my stomach was the more unbearable of the two.

She looked at me pityingly. "Sweetheart, you can't ingest that anymore. It's just going to stay in there until you get rid of it."

"How ...?" I begged.

Rose came over to me, and moved me into a squatting position. Now my stomach did cramp painfully, but I understood what she meant. I pulled off my PJ bottoms, beyond embarrassment in my discomfort and pushed hard, grunting with the effort to expel the foreign lump of liquid in my stomach.

Rose was squatting behind me, and whispered consolingly in my ear. "Your body doesn't work like that any more, you have to relax and let it go out." She put her right hand under my top and began rubbing my stomach in gentle circles, her left hand resting on my left shoulder.

"Relax," she said quietly, rubbing slow circles on my stomach.

I did. That is, I tried. I started to relax a little bit, and I felt myself let go, a little bit. But then ...

But then I suddenly became very aware of her cheek next to my cheek. I became very aware of her hand rubbing my stomach, but it was no longer relaxing me, ...

No, I felt a tingling down there; I felt her hand on my shoulder: it was an electric feeling of desire. I felt a need.

Totally out of nowhere a snarl escaped my throat. I grabbed her hand resting on my shoulder and put it on my breast, pressing it hard against me, and, at the same time, with my other hand, I grabbed her hand on my stomach and pushed it down.

Rose almost pulled back in surprise, but I pushed harder, and leaned my head against her shoulder and moaned with the pure shocks of pleasure the feeling of her skin on me gave, and then ...

And then I let go completely, crying out in a feeling so pure that I couldn't identify it, and everything whited out before my eyes, and I felt myself just releasing down there and felt my body completely dissolve.

I heard Rose's dry comment of "Well, that's one way to get rid of the water ..."

But that was all she could say, because, again, totally without me realizing what I was doing, my head whipped around, and I smashed my lips against hers, silencing her and pressing myself against her with all my might, my hands to her hands, my lips to her lips, answering a need I felt for her.

I could feel her smile against my lips, but she returned my kiss with her own.

But suddenly, she spun me around, so that I was facing her, and then shoved me away from her right into the river with a violent push.

"What the ..." I began in confusion and anger, feeling hurt and slightly rejected with her sudden action.

"Run, Lillian! Run!" she screeched. Rose's face was contorted with terror.

That when I heard them. Three sets of footsteps on top of the snow crust.

Vampires.

Rose turned quickly and began to descend into a crouch, issuing a hiss that was both protective and murderous.

She never finished moving into that crouch. Well, her head didn't. It stayed right were it was, then rolled up and over her shoulders to land in the snow, facing me. Her eyes her wide and she mouthed one word to me: "Run!"

It's then that I saw him. A man in a gray cloak, lean and sharp as a spear, standing next to Rose's body still descending into the crouch.

He said "Felix" dispassionately, and when he said that, another man in a gray cloak came out of nowhere, arms extended, he reached out to Rose's neck and ...

I saw it, but I didn't understand what I saw. It was if Rose's body was a sheet of paper, and his hands pulled that sheet in half, right down the center.

It was all happening so fast. How could a man bigger than a tank move so quickly? How could I see it all happen while everything moved through normal time so quickly but so slowly, I drew in my breath to scream.

The spear of a man said: "Rhee."

And a smaller woman, about my height, maybe a little smaller, in a cloak that was so light that it was almost white stepped out of the forest. She was old, so old, for a vampire, in her late thirties or forties, with jet black hair, she looked at the pieces that were Rose's body and ...

I saw it. It looked like pure heat coming out of the woman, and it exploded around was used to be Rosalie's body, but was now a column of flame reaching up to the sky. What fed the flames was now nothing but ash.

I screamed "NO!" in pure anguish.

They turned to me. I dove at the lean man, snarling, but the one called Felix grabbed me by my neck with one arm, pinning me to himself as if he were holding a squirming child.

Felix laughed with a twisted joy: "Newborns," he said, "so easy and fun to destroy!"

He started to close his arm around my throat as I struggled.

"No," said the lean one.

"Aw, Dimitri!" Felix complained.

The lean one called Dimitri came up to me, looked me in the eyes, and said. "No, this one's not an abomination." He looked me over contemptuously and turned, walking away into the forest.

The one called Rhee immediately followed Dimitri, and Felix whispered in my ear: "Tell all the other shit-eaters that you can find that they are next."

Then he shoved me hard face first down into the snow, muttering "Abominations!" following the others into the forest.

I got right back up, looking for one of them to kill. They were all gone. I looked over to the bonfire that was Rosalie.

"No," I whispered, and my beautiful, musical voice mocked me with its calm.

"No!" I shouted, and the tears did not fall, so the anger and the sadness stayed inside me, with nowhere to go and no way to be expressed.

"NO!" I screamed.

The stillness of the forest imitated my own stillness, silently echoing my despair.


A/N: I am grateful the reader Avarenda for sharing the, erhm, synchronicity of her prescient dream.