Chapter One: One Small Piece of Forever

Today was the day. The day I'd been dreading. Dreading for weeks, months even.

"Edward—" I whimpered, figuratively (and perhaps literally) dragging my feet as I walked forward.

"Bella, love, you did promise her," Edward said, though he was obviously as worried as I was. "You've got to follow through."

I took another step forward, my entire being yearning for nothing else than to turn and run back from him, as he stood there, arms folded and grinning with triumph. He waited patiently, knowing that I was bound by honor to approach and surrender my only daughter. My Renesmee.

"Jacob…" I whined, but he didn't listen and held his arms out for Renesmee.

"C'mon, Bells, you already told her that she could have a playdate with Claire at the beach today," Jacob said, as Renesmee grabbed his neck from my arms. "Quil's already there, and we're gonna be late if you take much longer with the goodbyes."

I grimaced again. I couldn't go with her into La Push anymore, the treaty forbid it. I couldn't send anyone I knew to look after her while she was there, other than Jacob or Charlie, and Charlie just wasn't enough of a threat to protect her from the rowdier wolves in the pack. Jacob was my best choice, but it irked me to no end that I had to surrender my daughter for nearly five hours.

"You swear that none of the others are gonna be there?" I asked, still clutching Renesmee in my arms.

"Sam told them to steer clear. Besides, you know that they wouldn't dare," Jacob said, grinning. "I might have to tear them up if they tried."

I grimaced, and he sighed.

"Relax, Bells, seriously. There's no way that even Paul would dare to even bare a canine at her. Even if they for some reason did dare, you know that Quil would defend a brother's imprint, not to mention that I'd be there too. And if even then they still dared, if it really came down to breaking my rule or Renesmee, you know which one I'd pick."

His rule. Jacob had told me about it, sometime after the Volturi had come, inspected Renesmee and held a fake court concerned on if she should live or die, and been foiled. He had promised himself that when he became an Alpha, he wouldn't ever order anyone to do anything. Alphas could command their pack members to do pretty much anything, using their 'Alpha voice,' he said. And since he was technically the rightful Alpha of all the packs of the Quileutes, his Alpha voice would affect any of the wolves he used it on.

"I know, I just—" I said, catching myself. I promised myself I'd be Switzerland, concerning matters of werewolf-vampire blood feuds, but I was suddenly seeing the issue with sending my eighteen-month-old daughter into werewolf territory that I wasn't allowed into anymore. "—I'm just being…"

"—Overprotective," Jacob finished for me. "Trust me, I know. Why do you think I asked Sam to leave the rest of the pack out of this one? Before you even asked me to? Bella, you know how imprinting works. I'd rather die for her, than let her get a scratch. She'll be as good as you left her, I promise."

I relented. I knew I was being ridiculous, but in the meantime, my brain didn't want to let go of Renesmee. I'd had my more than enough crazy-stalker-vampires trying to steal either me from Edward or Renesmee from me to keep me on my toes at all times.

But that didn't excuse that I had promised Renesmee. And I wasn't about to break a promise in front of my daughter. Good examples, and all that.

"Okay," I said, cringing as I let go of Renesmee. I could see that even as Jacob shifted her in his arms to hold her more securely, he was so gentle with her. Even though she was at least as tough as the rest of us vampires, he handled her as though she were a glass vase.

"You and Edward have a good time. She'll be back before you know it," he said, before loping off into the forest of La Push.

I stared at Renesmee's shining brown eyes as she smiled at me over Jacob's shoulder and waved at me before she turned a corner and was out of sight. I very nearly took a step forward to follow her, which would have been a mistake, had Edward's hand not held onto my arm at that moment.

"C'mon, love. Let's go have some fun," Edward said, gently tugging me away.

I let myself be pulled away as I continued to stare into the forest for a few more minutes. My recently-discovered, panicked motherly instincts were still screaming that this situation was very wrong, and I needed to be holding Renesmee.

But I also knew in my head that this situation was in fact completely normal, and I needed to get used to it. There would be a day where Jacob would be more suited to care for Renesmee than I would be.

The thought made me frown, and snapped me out of my trance. Edward's smile greeted me, and for the moment at least I forgot about my worrying.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked, batting my eyelashes a little.

"Probably not the same things you do," Edward admitted. Seeing my confused but also excited grin, he chuckled. "I thought it might be nice to do something more normal today."

I climbed into the passenger side of his car, my mind trying to think of what he could be talking about. "Hmm, like what?"

Edward smiled again, as he began driving away from the boundary lines. "You'll have to wait and see."

I frowned. "You know I hate surprises."

"And I hate not being able to read your mind as often as I'd like," Edward retorted.

"I can fix that," I said.

"Still not telling," he said, turning a corner onto the highway.

I glanced at a passing road-marker.

"Seattle?" I asked. I hadn't been to Seattle for a little while, and I really hadn't been out in the populated human world in a while, to be honest. "Are you sure?"

Edward knew exactly what I was talking about. Would I be able to control myself. He nodded.

"Bella, you are the strongest person I've ever met. You were two minutes old when you caught the scent of humans, and you ran away instead of following through. I'd be honestly surprised if you did anything other than wrinkle your nose as you passed a leaking blood bank," Edward said.

I bit my lip lightly. My new teeth were sharp enough that I knew if I bit full-force I'd most likely tear my lip off. "What about the sun? It's still afternoon, after all."

Edward nodded toward the backseat, and there I saw a large sunhat, two pairs of sunglasses, and two pairs of leather gloves. Certainly it wasn't the most enveloping defense against the sunlight, but it would do the job on a cloudy day. And it wasn't too conspicuous, either.

I huffed. I hated to be left in the dark about these things. Edward, guessing my thoughts, laughed.

"You'll enjoy this, I hope," he said, as we began to blend with Seattle traffic. The overcast clouds were a nice cover, and it reassured me. Hopefully nobody would notice us…

Edward pulled into a large parking-lot. I looked over at him as he pulled on one set of gloves and his sunglasses.

"Really? The movies?" I asked.

We sat in front of a large theater, movie listings trailing down the side of the building. The scent of buttered popcorn came wafting out, and even though I knew I wouldn't be able to digest it, I felt a pang of desire for only a moment. The thirst denied the craving, and that was the end of the matter.

Edward pulled on his last glove. "Y'know, we never really did get to go on a date, Mrs. Cullen. I thought it might be nice for you to experience some of these things."

I smiled at him smugly. "That's not true. I can think of several times we went on a date."

Edward raised an eyebrow at me.

"The night you told me you were a vampire, for starters," I said triumphantly. "Then the meadow, your family playing baseball—" I counted off my fingers.

"—The night you were nearly molested and killed, the afternoon I nearly was overcome with the desire to feed on your blood, and the night that you were introduced to traumatic rivals that frightened you for a little over a year," Edward said, countering with every event I gave him. "And if you want to include your birthday party last year where Jasper lost his cool for a bit, then you can just forget it. That was the day I made the worst decision of my entire existence. But this time, there's nobody threatening us, you aren't in shock or worried about anything other than if what I'm taking you to see will be a good movie or not. Just relax and try to enjoy yourself, Bella."

I huffed. "Those were still good memories, though."

Edward cupped his hand to my cheek, and brought his lips close to my ear.

"Every memory I have with you is a good one, love," Edward said. "The only exception I could make is when I thought you were dead, and I had failed you. But you never stay dead long."

I shuddered as his satin hands stroked my cheek, and leaned into it. I almost didn't care that we were in a parking lot, or when he started to put my sunglasses on for myself. I was in bliss for the moment at least.

Finally, I opened my eyes and put on the sunhat. I scowled as I noted it had a pink ribbon tied around it, and was possibly a little too fancy for my tastes, but I knew that I had to wear it in the human's world. I couldn't be exposed so early into my new life. The Volturi would never forgive me.

"I tried to stop Alice, but she insisted that you had to wear something with style," Edward said, apologizing with his eyes. "At least I got her to settle on just the hat."

I smiled back and leaned over, kissing him quickly. "Thank you for the thought."

Suddenly, but not too fast for me to process it, Edward was outside my door, opening it for me like the gentleman he was raised to be. I stepped out of the car, and we made our way into the theater. I waited patiently as Edward walked up to the ticket-counter and asked for the tickets he had already ordered. As he walked over, smiling, I grinned back at him, though I was still mildly disappointed that he had accounted for my new super-enhanced hearing.

"You've planned this thoroughly, haven't you?" I asked, wrapping my arms around him as we walked into the darkened room of the theater. "Tell me, is it a gory sort of movie, or a cheesy romance?"

"Think somewhere in the middle," Edward said, smiling as we went to our seats.

I did think about it for a minute.

"It's not Diehard, is it?" I asked, scrunching up my nose.

Edward laughed quietly. "No, it's not even Christmastime yet. Besides, that isn't exactly in the middle, is it?"

I slapped his arm playfully. "Diehard isn't a Christmas movie!"

Edward shrugged. "I disagree. It clearly has a Christmas tree in that one scene."

"The scene where everything's on fire?"

"Right."

I sighed, before returning to my train of thought.

"Is it Romeo and Juliet?" I asked, trying to think of something more reasonable for a first date sort-of-thing.

"No," Edward said, nearly laughing. The previews were already over. In a few seconds I would know…

I stared disbelievingly for a long time at Edward as he began to shake with silent laughter at my humored expression. Finally, I spoke in a hushed whisper.

"You brought me here to watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer?" I asked, nearly choking on my words. "Are you even serious right now?"

Edward was visibly laughing now, hiding his mouth behind his hand even though no sound audible to humans was coming out.

"What kind of man does that on a first date?" I asked, smiling as I resigned myself to character. In reality, this was actually quite funny, and I knew it. Edward's little joke on our joint existence. I played along with the pretended charade, fanning my face as though indignant. "Really! I'm going to call my mother after this is done."

"Don't be mad, Miss Cullen," Edward said softly, stroking my hand as he played along with me.

"Mrs. Cullen, if you don't mind, sir," I corrected, feigning offence. I leaned over and gave him another kiss, suddenly aware of the level of invisibility we had in the darkness to all other eyes in the theater.

In voices too low for human ears to hear, we talked through much of the movie. We jeered at the cheesy vampires, and laughed every time Buffy simply threw splinters of wood at the vampires and they collapsed in pain. During the movie, whenever there were gasps of fright or surprise from the rest of the crowd, I would jump into Edward's lap to steal a quick kiss or two, before pretending to no longer be frightened of the 'terrifying' vampires and return to my own seat, only to jump back in a handful of minutes.

Consequently, it was the best movie I'd ever been to, accounting for the fact that I barely paid any attention to the screen.


The nighttime air was thick in the forest. Nothing seemed to stir, as leaves gently fluttered to the ground, their once-golden hues turned brown with age. But further in the dark woods, sounds of huffing and pain came from a large, dark-brown she-wolf, massive in more ways than one. The sounds she made were sounds of labor pains.

'Agony,' thought the mother wolf. 'This is pure agony, but I will make it through this. I have to make it through this. For him.'

A familiar black wolf walked up, limping as it could feel her pain.

'Hey,' the wolf thought, grimacing as a particularly painful contraction came to her. 'Why don't you let us help you to the—'

The she-wolf tilted her head back and howled loudly as the child within her knew it would be time to come out soon.

'If you think I can move right now,' the she-wolf growled, literally and figuratively, 'Then you're even worse than Quil, Billy.'