I'M SO SORRRRRRYYYY! This is important to the grand story arc though, and will really be important in the completion of Emmett's character study. It's heartbreaking, but there's hope! Don't want to ruin anything... but there's hope.

Here's the Bangladesh chapter. I hope to post the next chapter by Mondayish!

THANKS FOR YOUR REVIEWS! It always makes me happy to read what you think. I love and appreciate your support! I have been smiling seeing what you have to say!

It really makes me SO HAPPY to get feedback, so pleasepleaseplease let me know what you think!

Review to make me update faster!

Notes on future chapters: I have a looooot mapped out - pretty much I'm just working on a way to wrap this whole thing up but it won't be any time soon no worries! Currently, I'm writing a scene between Rosalie and Pilar that I'm really excited about too. I'm writing a scene about how Peter and Carmen meet and how that affects Emmett and Maria and their relationship. I'm also looking at a scene for Elizabeth and Rosalie that I think is going to be very important.


22 (Over Soon) - Bon Iver

It might be over soon, soon, soon
Where you gonna look for confirmation?
And if it's ever gonna happen
So as I'm standing at the station
It might be over soon

All these years

There I find you marked in constellation
There isn't ceiling in our garden
And then I draw an ear on you
So I can speak into the silence

It might be over soon


Emmett

5 years ago; Bangladesh

The screaming was relentless, and I knew I'd hear it in my nightmares from here to eternity. There were millions of words crossing and tangling in the air maddeningly in a language I didn't understand.

My heart raced in my chest as I pulled my arms from over a group of young children and straightened my protective crouch over them from where I'd ducked against the collapsing bamboo and crashing structures around us.

I couldn't see a foot in front of me, and all I heard were screams in a foreign tongue. I felt despairing hands grasping rapidly at me, pulling me in a thousand different directions.

They knew one English word that I'd understand, 'help!'

This must be what hell feels like.

My eyes searched through the madness and blinding darkness to find Rosalie on the other side of the dirt floor.

I exhaled with relief, my entire body yearning to go to her. Rosalie was on the floor with a woman screaming and pawing at her to help her; the woman pointed shaking hands outside. Rosalie's purple eyes were wide and her focus shot outside into the rain where the woman manically gestured.

I heard a high-pitched squealing and the Burmese word for Mama echoed through the terror-filled night air.

"There's a child out there!" Rosalie shrieked, taking off running into the monsoon.

With all the screaming, desperation, and terror filled voices rising around us, my heart raced as I followed her.

"Rosalie!" I called after her, following her into the raging storm.

My boots stuck in the mud and knee deep water splashed wildly around me. It was irrational and stupid to believe that the rickety shelter provided this sort of immunity from being killed or maimed, but somehow it was harder to believe we could get killed inside.

Now, we were vulnerable to an angry and bitter earth that rejected us and bullets... wild bullets...

Rosalie tripped in the jungle greenery out of the water, falling to all fours with a grunting cry of pain before scrambling back up to her feet amongst the wreckage that was the falling refugee camp and thousands of rioting and fighting people.

I tried to pretend I was unafraid, but I wasn't.

I was very afraid.

Rain poured and soaked through my clothes so that I was already wet to the bone before I caught up to where Rosalie fell to her knees next to a woman and a small little boy, no more than two years old.

A group of men and women pulled at Rosalie's arms and clothes and hair to try and get her to help with their own problems that were no doubt just as dire, but she focused on the little boy.

"Rosalie Hale!" I called in as booming a voice as I could, worried for her as she shrugged her arms out of her soaked jacket so a desperate old man could put it on himself.

Rosalie examined the woman the best she could, and I pushed through to get to her.

Rosalie's eyes met mine and I saw her hands covered in blood and trembling in front of her.

"Emmett?…" She panted, fear in her eyes at the sight of so much blood.

I felt for the woman's pulse, not feeling anything but cold stillness…

I swallowed and looked back up into Rosalie's anticipatory eyes.

Tragically, I shook my head.

Rosalie took a sharp inhale, her wet blonde hair sticking to her skin before she picked up the little boy, cradling him to her chest.

"It's going to be all right." She cooed to him, kissing him and holding him close as she stood to her feet with him.

I sat back from his mother's dead body, watching Rosalie turn, rocking him in her arms as she set on her path back toward our shelter.

Her own face was resolute and courageous.

She was the bravest woman I'd ever seen.

I watched her, my hands trembling as I stood to follow her back.

Rosalie dodged fallen structures, leaning tin, broken bamboo, and heaps of sick and dying bodies as she continued her path.

"Rosalie, that was so stupid. You can't just…" I began, storming up behind her.

"I couldn't leave him!" She gasped, her eyes wide and red as she held the boy to her chest, cradling the back of his head with his mother's fresh blood staining her marble skin.

I didn't say anything. I just watched her, as she placed a kiss on his forehead, closing her eyes and vibrating with fear and the chill of realizing you live in a broken world for the very first time.

My heart and stomach sank for her as I watched this blissful part of her innocence disintegrate from in front of her gaze.

"I know, Rosalie. I know." I said in a ghostly tone, noticing the bright red blood on her hands seeming to glow in the night.

A blood-curdling scream caught our attention not too far from where we were and a little girl pulled on Rosalie's arms toward the noise, the earth seeming to rattle threateningly.

The little girl was in tears and the desperation on her face was so dire and so intense that Rosalie and I both sensed our divine duty to tend to it.

I couldn't understand what she was asking, and Rosalie obviously didn't either but she just nodded, following the little girl blindly. I wasn't going to let her go alone so I followed too.

The boy cried in her arms and she cradled him tighter.

The screaming we followed sounded like a woman. It was labored and random, and as we got closer, the little girl pulled us to duck into a small tin shelter.

It did very little to shelter from the rain, and it still splashed on our skin inside. I couldn't stand up straight and the shelter was barely wide enough for the inhabitants.

A young girl no more than 12 was sprawled in the dirt floor, her knees pronated and her feet digging into the mud and rising water as a few young boys and girls held her up from behind. She squeezed into their hands and they seemed to be yelling encouragements to her as she grimaced and wailed.

It didn't take long to connect what was happening.

"Oh my God." Rosalie's eyes went wide.

My hands shook, and my stomach dropped.

"I…" I couldn't think straight. "She's…"

"Have you delivered a baby before?" Rosalie asked me, determination in her eyes.

"No." My voice cracked.

"I haven't either." She gasped. "What do we do?"

"I… I don't know." I swallowed. "We need to go get help."

Most of these people needed medical attention but there was only one ambulance that could fit only five people in it that made a trip twice a day to a hospital in the city center.

Everyone we were here with had their own emergencies to deal with. We were the only two aids on this side of camp.

The young girl shrieked, reaching her shaking hand toward Rosalie, and writhing so her skirt hiked up around her waist, blood pooling between her legs in the muddy water.

I felt sick.

"We don't have that kind of time." Rosalie said with a pale white face and a somber tone, noticing that the baby was already almost here. "You're delivering this baby."

The young girl screamed, ducking into the arms of an even younger girl that held onto her. There was so much blood.

I noticed everyone in here was a child.

"I don't know what to do, Rosalie!" I told her fervently.

"Well, neither do I!" She said, panic in her eyes.

"I can't, Rosalie. I really can't." I froze, not having the time to think about how much I hated that she saw fear in me.

I ran stressed hands through my hair, shaking and feeling just as much as helpless as every desperate, hungry, sick child in this room.

One of the little girls reached for the boy in Rosalie's arms in anticipation.

"No, I…" Her voice cracked, and she could barely be heard over the screaming and shouting.

She didn't want to let him go, but she knew she had to.

I couldn't do this… I couldn't.

It had to be her.

"But, Emmett, my hands are dirty, I…" Rosalie had tears streaming down her face as she realized she had to do this, and her bottom lip was trembling as she reached for me, showing me her bloody, dirty palms and how violently her hands were shaking.

I couldn't think of any words, and even if I could've I wouldn't have been able to say them.

Rosalie was sobbing, but as she knelt down in front of the young girl, she maintained a brave face.

She wasn't crushed under the pressure. She was transformed by it.

In an instinctual and primal way, she'd know what to do in a way I could never know.

My feet were rooted to the spot I stood, and I was unable to move an inch. My eyes took in everything at once and I thought I was on overload.

"It's okay." Rosalie said to the girl, crouching between her knees, and even though the girl couldn't understand her, Rosalie was a great comfort and she started to cry a relieved string of cries. "Breathe. Your baby's almost here. You've just got to push."

The wide eyes of the young kids that held up the girl were full of fear, but the way they looked at Rosalie took me aback. They didn't understand how, but Rosalie was helping, and they were in awe of her.

I was in awe of her too.

Rosalie looked up at me with desperation, needing reassurance and I took a deep breath. This gave me the push I needed to move and do whatever I could to help her.

"Tell me what to do." I said, even though I was terrified and unsure and overwhelmed.

"Hold her." Rosalie instructed.

I just nodded, and the young kids surrounding her began to disperse so I could provide a more strong support for her as she leaned back into me. Another long scream coming from the center of her being as she readjusted to grasp onto my arms and hands frantically.

"That's it. Breathe." Rosalie encouraged, finding the girl's eyes, and stroking her face tenderly in a familiar, relational gesture. "Emmett, do you know anything about babies?"

"No." I shook my head, trying to go through anything I'd ever heard in passing. "Just… I know the head's supposed to come out first. See if you can…"

I couldn't say anymore. I might pass out.

"Brush her hair. Keep her comfortable." Rosalie told me, and made a face as she reached down between the girl's skirt.

I swallowed, lifting my shaking hand to brush along the girl's hairline. The girl closed her eyes, exhaling into my contact and screaming at Rosalie's.

"I'm sorry." Rosalie mumbled to the girl, pushing her own hair back determinedly with her wrist.

The look on her face astounded me. She was beautiful in such a new and shocking way.

I wanted to reach out for her, but I had to focus.

This continued on into the night, and the girl dug her fingernails into my skin again and again, so I gripped every muscle in my body to brace myself for her. I tried not to shake with the fear and uncertainty that pulsed in jolts through my veins. I picked her up out of the mud, trying to make her comfortable.

Rosalie twisted her hair on top of her head, her jaw clenched and her brow furrowed resolutely as she reached down under the girl's skirt, ducking her head…

"Oh my God, I…" Rosalie's eyes were wild and her face went white. "I… I see…"

Of course, I'd never been witness to childbirth. It was a mystery and I preferred it that way. I was far from squeamish after all I'd seen in my life, but this was the one thing I was blissfully ignorant to.

It wasn't beautiful, as everyone seemed to suggest. It was the worst thing. It was a nightmare of terror and a display of brute strength unlike anything else. It was visceral and awful. It was violent and ugly.

Why did anyone do this?

Granted, there were medical and technological advances not available to us in this desperate moment, but this was unimaginable…

"It's almost here! Just a little more." Rosalie's focus came back up to the girl, but her hands reached down.

She looked all at once terrified and confident.

I'd never heard screaming like what I heard next, but then the girl's body relaxed and fell limp into my arms as she exhaled a cry tiredly. I looked down at her face for a fleeting moment, seeing something that resembled waking up from a good dream. A tired smile spread across her lips and her glazed eyes blinked slowly.

I'd never seen anything like it in my life… After all that horror….

Rosalie gasped, letting out a laugh produced just by bubbling joy and relief, and my focus shot back up to her.

"It's… It's a boy." Rosalie produced a gorgeously healthy, but tiny baby boy to the young girl in my arms.

I could've passed out right there, but I had a job to do, and there was nothing I wanted to miss about this.

I watched Rosalie with open, receptive eyes - absolutely unable to forget this moment. Her strength was undeniable and radiated out of her skin so that she seemed to glow like a warrior of heaven in this dark hole of hell.

"Hi, baby…" Rosalie grinned a wide, special smile down to the baby, and her voice transformed. "Go meet your mama."

Rosalie was breathing heavily as she transferred the sticky, messy, but beautiful baby into its mother's arms with the utmost care.

I looked down on the baby, hearing the mother's tired voice cooing to it in a language I didn't understand the words of, but the intent and emotion was obvious and blinding.

The baby was so little. It was so… so small in such a big world.

Then, Rosalie's eyes found mine and the planet shifted.

I loved her.

It's hard to say the exact moment you fall in love with someone, but with Rosalie, I knew exactly when it was. I thought I'd loved her before, but now, I was in love with her.

And, I knew exactly why I was in love with her.

No matter how broken, and awful and hellish this world was, she radiated with the glow of heaven, and I was drawn to her light like a moth to a flame.

I longed to be near to her. I longed to bask in her light.

"I just…" Rosalie started triumphantly, unable to acknowledge what she'd just done.

"I love you." I blurted out.

We hadn't told each other we loved each other in months. We awkwardly tried to backpedal after jumping straight into the deep end just a few weeks into our budding relationship. The morning after we'd snuck around and I had dinner with her family, she met me in my office the next day and cried and cried and cried.

She'd told me she wasn't ready for what we'd done. She'd told me she wasn't scared of me, but she was still trying to figure out how to... enjoy physical aspects of a relationship.

I understood, and it killed me I hadn't been more sensitive or aware to her. Before Rosalie, most everything was just physical for me. I hadn't thought twice that physical affection could actually mean something, and to Rosalie, it meant everything.

She wasn't ready, and she thought she was. It killed me that I'd hurt her and couldn't understand what she needed, but I didn't know it would be this hard to be with someone as… innocent as Rosalie.

I thought maybe that would be the end, that we would decide our age gap was too much, but more than that - our lives and stories and personalities didn't match and we'd made a bad decision.

I thought it was the end, but it wasn't….

It was hard to backpedal, but we did and now… Now seemed as good a time as any to tell her I loved her again.

"I love you too, Emmett." She sighed, and responded with a little smile, leaning back on her hands, rightfully exhausted.

It had been hours and hours of this and I noticed the sky had begun to turn grey with a new morning.

"But, that still doesn't seem enough to say." I said.

The young girl in my arms was panting, and I gave her support, feeling her trembling tired body against my chest.

Even in its exhaustion, I felt her strength and vitality. It was otherworldly and cosmic and unexplainable as I connected to her as she held her child in her arms.

"It's enough for me." Rosalie responded, pulling her wet hair from where it stuck to her neck. "Just tell me over and over again so I don't forget."

"I will." I nodded in a covenant.

I repositioned the young girl so she was comfortably lying with her creation as it now slept in her arms. The other children gazed on the new baby and new mother with enchantment and awe.

Now, I opened my arms for Rosalie and she sunk into them, collapsing into my chest.

I hated myself for suggesting that she came with me as it put her in so much unforeseeable danger…

But, as she breathed into my neck evenly like she was trying to find sleep, I couldn't help but think about never letting her leave my side again.

I wanted her forever.

As the storm passed and Mother Nature calmed around us, we found ourselves exhausted in the wreckage of a ravaged camp, helping relocate families and desperate people into the few places that could be salvaged from the storm.

We were walking through sheer desolation, but as we got the girl and her baby the help she needed and got the boy to a doctor to be examined and a plan for his care set into place, I couldn't help but think the sun seemed to shine brighter than it had before.

I noticed later in the evening once we took a second to break and finally sleep after all that had transpired, Rosalie stood right on the other side of the makeshift threshold of my 'door' that was really just half a threadbare piece of fabric full of holes.

Her tired eyes watched me as I sat in the dirt, writing and recording all I'd seen before I tried to go to sleep. It was hard to sleep in places like this, when there was so much to do and so many people to help.

She drug her boot through the dirt, drawing a line with her toe as if to mark this threshold and make it obvious that she was on the other side of it.

"You can come in." I said, not looking up from my page as she realized I'd noticed she was there.

"I…" She said, her voice sounding far away and ghostly.

I looked up now, finding her eyes.

My stomach dropped at the sight of them.

I could see in them that she had been jaded. She had been scarred. She would never be the same.

She still wore her bloodstained clothes, her hands still were drenched and red. Her golden hair had blood in it and dirt caked in her ivory skin.

Rosalie took shaky breaths as if she had just started to feel the weight of what had happened. She was only human and she'd attempted the super-human.

Her respiration was panicked and if she wasn't careful she'd hyperventilate.

"Hey, hey come here, talk to me." I mumbled, reaching out for her to join me in the floor. "I know you're overwhelmed. But, these people need and appreciate you so much; you did so good, and…"

I tried to start with what was obvious and easy to say. It was hard to exist like this and mentally process this kind of squalor, and… Rosalie delivered a baby without knowing the first thing about delivering babies.

"They're dead…." Rosalie breathed to interrupt me.

I knew immediately what she meant, and I don't think I'd ever felt such sorrow and grief wash over me as I set down the notebook and stood for her.

"Emmett, I've… I've got their blood on my hands." Her bottom lip trembled and she just held out her dirty palms for me, like a child unable to process what was happening.

"Wash your hands, Rosalie." I said calmly.

"I… I…" She stuttered, starting to malfunction and whimper.

If there was ever a time to step up and be a man, it was right now. She needed me.

I was no stranger to death, but being desensitized to it didn't make it any easier to be surrounded by. This was Rosalie's first experience of it, and it was swallowing her whole.

I reached out for her, taking her wrists.

"Rose. Wash. Your. Hands." I said gently, enunciating my words.

She nodded, her eyes glazed and wild as they remained tethered to mine.

My gaze served as a tie to reality and I kept the eye contact fervently before she looked down at how I held onto her wrists.

Rosalie remained frozen in the spot where she stood, not seeming to be able to mentally process or make decisions, no matter how small.

"Okay, come here." I pulled her behind me.

Her legs were like Jell-O as I guided her outside, so I scooped her up and cradled her as we wound through the trees toward the stream.

She swallowed, closing her eyes as I guided her to her knees next to the water.

Rosalie was breathing heavily, panting painfully as I guided her hands to the cold, risen, muddy stream.

Her hands shook violently, even under water and I knew she was afraid.

I had never wanted to go home more in my entire life.

"Do you want my help?" I asked, reaching to put my hand on her shoulder.

Rosalie just nodded, not really processing what I said. She didn't move, so I started unbuttoning her shirt while she stared straight ahead catatonically. I guided her arms out of her shirt that was once light blue but was now tainted with the blood of countless sufferers, including her own.

When I was done with her shirt, I untied her boots and slipped them and her soaked socks off of her blistered feet. She barely winced at the shredded skin and blood.

Once she was just in a once white tank top, she slowly stood to her feet like a baby giraffe, unbuttoning and unzipping her khaki work pants. As the fabric slid over her snowy white skin, I saw the bruises on her mile-long legs and the blood caked on her bony knees and ankles.

I swallowed, hating this awful world, and knowing that she was much too good for it.

"I thought I…" Rosalie stepped out of her pants, furrowing her brow as she looked upon my face.

"You did everything you could." I said, trying not to be distracted by the splendor of her body in just her underwear, even in such a dire and terrible situation.

She was so beautiful, but I hated seeing her this upset.

She nodded, seeming to accept this, but the tragedy in her eyes remained as she lowered herself into the stream, wincing at the cuts and bruises as they met the water.

I sat on the bank and watched her dip her hair into the water, seeing red blood swimming away from her in squiggly, snake-like streams.

Rosalie ran her hands through her hair, closing her eyes before holding her breath and submerging herself fully under the water.

I watched her as she came up for air, and I worried about the furrow of her brow as she scrubbed her fingernails across her scalp. I took the flask from my pants pocket to turn it up.

"Here." I told her, offering her a drink too.

She just tilted up her chin so I could meet her own lips with the flask, and I guided it upward. She swallowed once and I pulled away.

Rosalie grimaced, but held out her hand for the flask. I gave it to her.

She could use it.

"Are you okay?" I asked her as she took a few more drinks.

"Why did that happen?" She gasped, wincing at the strength of the alcohol.

"I don't know." I answered honestly, hating that I didn't know some magic words to provide comfort in this situation.

She shivered as she climbed out of the water, and I pulled off my shirt for her.

Rosalie didn't protest as I guided her arms through the holes.

"You did everything you could, Rosalie." I told her again, hoping this time she'd hear me.

She nodded.

"I did." She swallowed, seeming to acknowledge it.

"You did." I hoped this would give her some sort of peace.

But, she would never be the same after this. I was nervous, and the pit in my stomach wasn't just from hunger.

Our flight was tomorrow morning and I had already planned to go see a priest the second I got back, as I did after every time I went on any trip like this. Rosalie did the same, but she didn't really understand the necessity of it like I did.

Now, undoubtedly, she was ready to run into St. Patrick's and never leave.

"It wasn't enough." She murmured, finding my eyes this time.

I was crushed and heartbroken to see the pain in her face.

I never wanted it to be there again.

"Stand in the sun with me." I requested, pulling on her hands so we were out from under the trees and in a spot of warm sunshine.

She closed her eyes in the light, inhaling. The warmth cooked our skin, and I watched her recharge.

"You feel that, Rosalie?" I asked her softly. She nodded.

"That warmth means we're alive. That means another day has come, and that means we have another million chances to do something, to be something, to… to matter."

"We have to keep going. We're still the ones feeling the sun for some reason. We still have some mission here that's keeping us alive. We've gotta keep helping as much as we can, loving as much as we can, and just… We have to keep going on."

"You're right." She agreed with me, then her eyes met mine. "But, it's so hard to keep going sometimes."

"I know, Rosalie… I know." I said running my hands over her wet hair.

We sat down in the dirt together and Rosalie reached for my hand. I laced my fingers through hers and she laid her head on my shoulder.

I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears as I prayed she'd be okay. She was too good for this brokenness.

"There's so much… dying." Rosalie said in barely a whisper.

I wound my arm around her, hoping to provide some sort of comfort.

"Are you afraid of dying?" She asked, more vulnerability in her voice than I'd ever heard.

"No. I'm not." I told her honestly, squeezing her tight. "I'm not afraid of dying."

That's when she looked up and her violet eyes met mine.

"Why?" She asked, not a trace of puzzle or curiosity in her eyes, but something else I couldn't identify.

"Because…" I said, believing it wholeheartedly though not really knowing a true answer. "It's not… It's not the worst thing."

"You're right. The worst thing is living." Rosalie said, her eyes blank as they stared ahead now, away from me.

"Rose…" I started, but wasn't sure how I was going to finish it.

"That's the worst thing you can do to someone… Die when they still have to survive. That's the most cruel loneliness."

I stood, dumbfounded by her take on the question and her response.

"I suppose I should've asked if you were afraid of living." Rosalie murmured, and I reached for her. "Of surviving."

She closed her eyes, leaning into my touch and grabbing onto my hand so it would stop with my palm at her cheek.

Then, her eyes shot back open and she looked up at me.

"I'm so tired, but I can't close my eyes." She mumbled. "I see it all over and over again."

I nodded.

"It's…" I began.

"I don't want to sleep alone." She interrupted with open, intense eyes.

I swallowed, noting the look in her eyes.

"I can't sleep alone." She clarified.

Then, I nodded.

"I can't either." I hoped I wasn't being too forward and pushing her.

"Can I sleep with you?…" She started, easing my worry.

I didn't dare even breathe, but I nodded almost too quickly before offering her my arm.

"Sure." I tried to answer cooly.

She ducked into my side, curling under me as if I could somehow shield her from all of this.

I had this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that was very different from the hunger. It was… It was… butterflies.

We moved the makeshift door to my quarters, and I felt my stomach drop.

Rosalie didn't look nervous, but more exhausted than anything.

She ran her hands over her face, and it struck me just how much I loved her.

"I lied. I am afraid." I told her with more honesty than I'd ever expressed to anyone.

Rosalie looked over at me with wide, open eyes.

"I'm afraid of a lot of things now that I didn't used to be."

I looked over at her, absolutely unable to keep myself from reaching for her. I needed her close.

"What do you mean?" She murmured.

"Before… Before I…" I cleared my throat. "Before you, Rosalie, I wasn't afraid of dying. I wasn't afraid of anything."

She waited.

I couldn't sift through my tangled thoughts fast enough. I took a deep breath.

"But now… Now, I'm… terrified." I admitted the truest thing I could think of.

Rosalie took my hands, and began to kneel. I followed her to the threadbare sheets over the dirt.

"Hold me." She said, her voice as smooth as velvet, but as sure as stone.

I didn't want anything else.

She fit perfectly into my arms, and I closed my eyes to inhale her as she curled closer into me. I felt her breathing as she pressed her body into mine, and I couldn't help but notice that this was the first time we'd been like this - lying together.

I wrapped my arms around her, letting Rosalie find any sort of solace in me that she could. She threaded her arms under mine and around my waist. Her hands pressed into my bare back, and her fingers gripped at my skin to pull herself closer to me.

She tilted her chin up, asking for a kiss I more than wanted to give her.

Her lips were soft, but hungry and desperate. She tangled herself up with me, squeezing until her muscles shook.

"I'm… so afraid of how much I love you. I didn't know I had that much in me. I didn't know I could do that…" I admitted to her. "I didn't know I could feel… I… just never want to be apart from you, Rosalie. Ever."

She didn't respond, but she gripped me tighter.

"I want to die with you. I don't want to spend a second on this earth without you, and I… I know it might be selfish, but I never want you to spend a second on this earth without me. I don't want you to love anyone else. I…"

I frowned, not satisfied with the words I'd chosen.

"Hold me tighter." She begged, trembling with the effort of holding me to her.

I didn't know how I could hold her any tighter without totally absorbing her body into mine.

"I will." I swore to her as she buried her face into my chest and wound her leg around my waist.

I was surprised at her forwardness, but it didn't feel… overtly sexualized as she anchored herself to me. It had an innocence to it that I had to focus on as I felt her proximity in a way I had never felt her before.

I kissed her forehead, thinking about how much she trusted me.

"Don't ever let me go." Rosalie begged, her voice a desperate whisper as she pulled herself even closer to me, so I could feel her heartbeat falling into perfect synchronization with mine.

I just nodded, kissing her forehead.

"I can't let you go, Rosalie." I said.