A/N – Hi everyone, I'm back again! After three years writing all human, I'm going back to some old school Twilight vampire drama this time. It's going to be a vampire Rosalie coming across a human Emmett, so basically an alternative Twilight – not a particularly original idea, but I'm having fun writing it and I hope you enjoy it!

As always, questions, comments and chat always welcome!

~ Rebecca

Chapter 1 – First Sight

My last class of the day is biology. I stifle a sigh at the thought of it as I walk towards the lab; eleventh grade biology is very unlikely to prove scintillating or engaging to someone who recently completed a medical degree, or at least the theoretical part of it. Not for the first time I wonder if I should have challenged myself to do the clinical rotations and actually qualified as a doctor. My record is clean, and if Edward can do it then surely I can?

"You probably could." Edward falls into step beside me, answering my silent thoughts. "But it's nightmarishly difficult, and do you really want to put yourself through that when you can never practise?" He gives me a slightly sympathetic smile. "Carlisle's apparent youth is challenging enough, you and I don't really stand much of a chance of being taken seriously."

Edward's right about that. Frozen forever at eighteen, I can pass for a couple of years younger or older, but attempting to convince anyone I'm old enough to be a qualified doctor would be absurd. Even so…

"I know, but junior biology again?"

Edward laughs. "What dissection do think we'll have here? Sheep hearts again? Rats? Or perhaps foetal pigs? They seem to be in fashion at the moment, but in this school I think I'm leaning towards hearts."

"Surely you could just ask Alice?" I say lightly. "But in case you haven't, I'll go for the rat."

We reach the door to the lab and Edward courteously steps aside so that I enter first. The biology teacher, leaning against his desk and talking expansively to students clustered nearby, catches sight of us and stutters to a stop.

I wait for it to pass. The first day at a new school is always an absolute embarrassment of moments like this when, for probably the first time in their lives, the humans catch sight of the other. A vampire. The same emotions playing across their faces as they are enthralled just by the look of me, the same stunned gaze at the fierce and exquisite beauty I carry, followed by the same sweeping wave of confusion and unease as their subconscious recognises me for what I am.

Monster.

It isn't just me, of course. Edward, Alice and Jasper all experience it too. They say I'm more beautiful, and that is true, but they have the same innate gifts to allure and entice and enchant. They might be more able than I am to play down their inhuman beauty and perfection, better able to make people think attractive rather than breathtaking, but they are vampires too.

The teacher colours a dull red when he realises he's staring. "Welcome," he says. "I was expecting some new students this afternoon. Cullen?"

"I'm Rosalie Hale," I say. "My brother, Edward Cullen."

"Of course. Welcome to Forks High, I'm Mr Fletcher." He rummages amongst the mess of books and papers on his desk, eventually handing Edward and I each a few stapled pages. "Here's a copy of the course outline. Since you're starting here in November you've missed a little, but we can look at what you were doing in your previous school and fill in any gaps with some make up work before midterms. Don't worry about that for today though, just take a seat."

I slip into a seat by the window at the back bench, Edward settling onto the stool beside me. He flips quickly through the course outline. "All we've missed is a unit about the cell being the basis for life," he murmurs. "I don't think catching up will be too difficult. And you should have bet for stakes, because we'll be dissecting rats later in the year."

"Better than flatworms I suppose." I straighten my pile of books, doing my best to ignore the stares and whispers of the other students as they file in and take their seats. Sharing a class with Edward is never my favourite (he can read my mind from across the school, but it's much easier to pretend he can't when he's not right beside me reacting to every stray thought) but at least when he's sitting beside me it's less likely that boys will try to sit next to me or ask me out.

"The one sitting over by the door is planning on ambushing you when class is over," Edward says absently.

I roll my eyes, although whether this is directed at Edward answering my thoughts or at the boy sending hopeful glances my way across the lab I'm not entirely sure.

"All right everybody, settle down!" The teacher claps his hands together. "Time to get started."

There's a quick flurry of activity as people find their seats, and one last student ducks under the teacher's arm to enter the room just before the door is closed. From the corner of my eye I see his messy dark hair and faded flannel shirt as he slides on to a seat at the bench in front of me, immediately twisting around to face us with a dimpled grin.

"Hey, you new? I'm…"

They are very nearly the last words he ever speaks.

The scent of him hits me like a battering ram, smashing past all sense of control or reason or restraint. The monster inside howls and the thirst burns through me like a firestorm, leaving nothing in its wake but the agony of a ravenous, overpowering desire for this boy's blood.

Want that mine want that now WANT THAT MINE MINE MINE

Never, in my entire vampire existence, have I felt anything even close to this. This is beyond thirst, beyond desire, beyond craving…this is need, an irresistible imperative that can only be satisfied in one way.

MINE GIVE IT TO ME MINE MINE

For seventy years I have stood unflinching in the face of temptation, perfecting the iron self-control I pride myself on. My inner monster has been bound and chained, held so tightly I thought the bonds inviolable…but my control proves as formless and insubstantial as smoke in the face of this blood song.

"Rosalie! No! You can't! Remember who you are!"

Edward's agonised hiss, far too low for any human to hear, and I may as well be deaf for all the good it does. Remember who you are…I am no one, and nothing beyond the thirst consuming me.

In that instant, nothing matters. Not the years of perfect, pure control. Not the massacre that I am about to unleash here. Not the horror of the act I am about to fling myself heedlessly at. Nothing matters, not as long as the boy's heart beats and his blood sings and the thirst flames hotter than the sun.

"Rosalie, no!"

I'm not aware that I've moved until Edward's forearm slams across my thighs under the bench, shoving me back down onto the stool with such force that the wood creaks ominously under my weight. His fingers dig deep into my flesh as he desperately tries to hold me back. "Rosalie…please…"

My hatred of being touched, the wild fear I have always felt at any form of restraint, comes to my rescue then. His rescue, rather, as the touch of Edward's hands on me makes me recoil. For a moment the boy in front of me is forgotten as, without thought, I reach under the bench and brutally tear Edward's hand off my leg, ripping off three of his fingers as I do so.

The sound of it echoes through the room, the crack of rending stone drowning out Edward's hiss of pain and shock. For a moment we both freeze as the heads of our new classmates all turn vaguely in our direction, searching for the source of the noise.

"What was that?" Mr Fletcher walks between our bench and the one in front, pushing the window wide so he can lean out. "I didn't know there was any scheduled maintenance near the labs…"

The cool air rushing past him offers a brief, fragile respite. I take a gulp of it, washing away a tiny fraction of the ambrosial scent of the boy's blood, and for a moment reason reasserts itself.

I can't do this. I don't want to do this. For a brief moment, my panicked eyes meet Edward's. Please don't let me!

"Can we leave the window open?" Edward asks. Under the bench he takes his severed fingers from my hand. "It's a little stuffy in here."

Casually he shifts on his seat, moving closer to me, and then his undamaged hand circles my wrist. The intimate nature of the touch repulses me, and for a moment I fight back a shudder.

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I know, but if I don't…"

He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to.

Mr Fletcher shrugs as he turns away from the window. "I can't see anything. I'll leave it open – you can close it if it gets too chilly. Now, getting back to today's lesson…"

The fresh air, Edward's grip on my wrist, knowing he can hear every thought and will stop me if he has to…I clutch at the tattered remains of my self-control.

You're not going to do it. You're not going to do it. You don't want to do it. You don't want to do it. You don't want to do it…

Oh…but I DO.

This thirst is intolerable. My throat feels like a desert, searing under the midday sun, parched and split. It cannot be possible to endure this? Surely no one could expect it of me? It is impossible for me to imagine that anyone else has suffered like this and resisted, not when the blood that will slake the thirst is so tantalisingly close!

I can't tear my eyes away. The boy's hair is cut short in the back, revealing the curve of his tanned neck as it disappears into the frayed collar of his shirt. Even slouched on his seat it's clear from the breadth of his shoulders, the solid muscles in his biceps, and the length of his back that he is probably the biggest person in the room.

Not that it will do him any good. His strength will be nothing against mine…I could be over this bench and have my teeth to his neck in the time it takes him to draw breath…even if he should think to fight back his hardest blows would be less than the touch of a butterfly's wings to me. But he wouldn't fight back…I'd be so quick, he'd never know what happened…the delicate skin over the pulse beat in his neck, it would be so easy…so quick…so GOOD…

For a moment I almost feel it, and the world narrows down to nothing but a laser point focus on the boy's neck as I visualise my leap, the bite…my muscles tighten with anticipation, my whole body poised…

"Rosalie." Edward's hand tightens on my wrist, drawing me slightly closer to him as he talks to me so fast and so low that none of the humans could possibly hear. "Please, don't think of it. Think of Esme, you don't want to hurt her, you don't want to disappoint her…"

With a great effort, I thought of my soft-hearted mother figure. No, I didn't want to disappoint Esme.

But she would understand. The monster within will not be quiet, the screaming rage now a wheedling tone, devious and contemptible. Esme would understand…hasn't she done the same thing? Haven't they ALL done it? They all have blood on their hands, blood on their tongues…why are YOU the only one who has to be perfect?

"Carlisle hasn't," Edward breathes. "And YOU haven't Rosalie, you haven't ever…your record is perfect, you've always resisted, you can do it now too!"

But he smells SO GOOD! This isn't like anything else I've ever come across…can't YOU smell him?

"Yes, and it's…something." Edward looks hunted. "But you can't fall now!"

Ahead of me the boy fidgets in his seat, rubbing the back of his neck like he can feel my stare as a physical thing.

He's just one person. Just one…no one could REALLY be expected to live with the denial we live with forever…not when it feels like this! This is barbaric, Edward, this thirst is merciless and I can't hold out, I can't…not for just one little person…

"There are twenty-three other people in this room. Will you kill them all, for him? Will you make me help you, so that they won't have time to scream and alert the rest of the school and make this carnage even worse? Will you do that, Rosalie? Butcher a room full of children?"

I half nod and half shake my head, torn between sating this monstrous thirst and the tiny part of me that sees the horror I am contemplating for what it is.

I don't want to! But I don't know how I can NOT do it! It's not possible…I cannot live with this kind of need!

"But you can!" Edward hisses. "You're doing it right now! You're sitting here, you are enduring this, and you can keep doing it! Just sit Rosalie, keep still, don't think of him. Don't think of the thirst. Think of Esme and Carlisle. Think of every other time in the past seventy years that you have wanted to do this and you didn't…you can resist this too. Think of what the Volturi will do to us all if you carry out such a public massacre! Think of how much you want to be better than me…you want to keep that perfect record over me, don't you?"

I half laugh and half sob, because he knows me so well. He's not trying to appeal to my better nature – he knows I don't have one! But appeal to my pride, my wretchedly stubborn pride, and my vanity…oh, that reaches me. The tiny part of me that is still me, still the Rosalie that has never fallen, tosses her hair and straightens up, because I am better than this!

At the front of the room the clock ticks, and I focus everything I have on it. The grinding of the internal cogs, the slight whine of the hands being forced to move, the heavy clunk as they shift to their next position. The seconds, the minutes, passing with excruciating, agonising slowness. Every minute an extension of the boy's life.

Perhaps later? The monster again, whispering of dark desires and unspeakable acts. Somewhere else? Somewhere private, so no one else need be hurt. It could easily be done. A smile his way, a careless touch, a beguiling look…he would come to you willingly. No witnesses, no barbarous public massacre, no scandal to touch you and your family. Just one boy who would quietly disappear, that's all…

And the peace and privacy to take what you want. To savour him. To drown in the bliss of feeding as you're supposed to, to finally feel SATIATED…

"To BE the monster? To become the beast you've always been afraid you are?" Edward wrenches me back to the present, his voice in my ear drowning out the hypnotic murmur of the monster. "Oh Rosalie, no. You have too much strength for that."

Never has Edward looked at me with such pity and such love, and even as the thirst burns the shame I feel deep inside is dark and cold and crawling with horror.

No. I cannot become that. I cannot do that. I am Rosalie Lillian Hale and I am beautiful and I am perfect and I will not ever be less than I can be.

The thirst is no less, the burning fire of need flaming higher with every minute that passes, but I hold myself rigidly still against it.

Wait. Suffer. Endure.

Win.

To ignore the firestorm seems at first impossible, but I have spent seventy years brutally denying the agony of deprivation and I will do it now too. I close my mind to the burn, to the desire, to the want, and I find something else. Edward's hand like an iron manacle around my wrist. The cool dampness of the air outside lifting a strand of my hair. The individual stitches of the handknit cashmere sweater I'm wearing against my skin. The scratches and indentations in the laminate of the bench beneath my hands. I seize upon anything that is not the excruciating pain of the thirst and my denial of my true nature.

It works. Moment by torturous moment, the boy's heart keeps beating and his blood keeps singing, and I cling to the barest thread of self control so that he lives.

The bell for the end of the period rings, and I am at the door before the first echoes fade, wrenching it open. I've moved too fast, I know that, careless of what the humans around me will see, but nothing matters more than escape. Nothing matters more than being free from the blood song of the boy that has bewitched me.

"Rosalie!" It's Alice, her familiar tones cutting through the hum of human conversation in the corridor.

I wheel and face her, my eyes blazing with barely contained fury. "You didn't SEE that? Couldn't have WARNED me? What were you doing?"

Alice looks almost dazed. "I didn't see it," she whispers. "I was watching Jasper mostly, but even so I should have…I don't know why I didn't see him!"

Over her shoulder I see Edward's russet hair above the crowd. Beside him, taller still, I can see the curly dark head of the boy. Both of them coming in my direction. I can't face it, and I whirl away from Alice without another word.

"It won't do any good going to the office," she calls after me. "They won't let you out of biology. And he's in your English and gym class in any case…"

I grit my teeth and, instead of continuing towards the office to request a timetable change as I had planned, I wrench open a fire door and dart outside. The cool, wet air slaps me in the face and I breathe it in in deep, desperate gulps. Cleansing breaths, washing away the scent of the boy, washing away the taste of desire and need and shame, as I walk fast towards the misty green forest that edges the school yard. Only once I'm in its shadows do I begin to run.