Forty-One

There was something so beautiful about Rosalie, Ness thought. Even past the sharp angles of her immortal face, the exact way her saffron curls dipped into a perfect oval around her heart-shaped face, or the way her head tilted at the same exact angle when she caught sight of Renesmee approaching her.

Bella would always be her mother, but to Renesmee, her bond with Rosalie was stronger than any material bond.

Her aunt was standing at the end of the long road leading up to the Cullen compound, close to the road, slightly out of sight from the highway where the school bus dropped Renesmee off. Rosalie embraced her. "I missed you. How was school?"

The day had been long. Beginning with a ferocious argument with both of her parents about convincing them to let her go back to school. It had been nearly two weeks since she had been to class. Followed by an entire day of trying to distract herself with assignments and the small circle of friends that she had barely made so she wouldn't worry all day about Jacob. The thought of how she had sent him away still burned in her mind. As well as the quick glimpse that she had caught of him when he was completely naked, being dragged away by her Alec and her uncles. "Good," she answered, keeping her voice as calm as she could keep it. "It's nice to be back."

A smirk formed on Rosalie's lips, and after squeezing an arm around Renesmee's shoulders she gestured for them to start walking up the hill. "I'm still surprised that Bella and Edward were okay with you going back."

"I think Charlie had something to do with that. I heard he and mom talking the other day. I don't have quite the same level of acute hearing as the rest of you, but it's still good. He told mom that I should be in school and when I brought it up again this morning she seemed to back down." After a pause, she added, "I heard that we're moving…"

Rosalie didn't sigh—an action that was all too human, but Renesmee could tell, by the set of her jaw and the jut of her chin that Rosalie was working up to saying something. "We need to move on. We've been in Forks for too long. Over the decades, we matriculate from place to place. Carlisle—"

"—Needs to be a doctor, I know." Each member of the family had sacrificed, in one form or another, for Carlisle to pursue his chosen calling. Even, it would seem, Renesmee herself.

Sympathetically, Rosalie went on. "It's strange for you, because you've never known anything but Forks."

"I've never been out of Washington State. Did the family ever live in Canada, before this?"

"Not Canada, exactly," Rosalie explained, twirling a lock of Ness's hair around her finger. "We lived in Alaska for some time. With our cousins, the Denali's."

"I've heard Dad talk about that. He always said there were too many vampires in one place, people were noticing, we had to break away, back into two groups."

Rosalie arched an eyebrow. "That, and Tanya had a thing for Edward. Still does, probably. He was constantly reading her mind and knowing all of the naughty things that she wanted to do to him."

Renesmee was flabbergasted. Shocked into a rosy-cheeked silence.

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Sorry."

"Well," Renesmee went on, needing to change the subject. "At least we'll all be together. Even if grandpa Swan and everyone else stays here."

"Well, it'll take a while for us all to get back together, but that is the plan."

"What do you mean…? It'll take a while for us all to get back together."

Tilting her head, Rosalie elaborated, "Emmett and I are going to go to New York for a while. We've been meaning to for quite some time. I need to go back there every few years to check…"

Renesmee stopped walking to face her aunt and interrupt, "How are you not coming with us? What do you need to do in New York? Why aren't you coming to Canada with the rest of us?"

Rosalie pulled out her phone from her back pocket, fingering the key pad and opening her internet browser. "I was born in New York. You know that." She started typing a name into the screen. When I was killed, I had two younger brothers who were still alive. They had children and then those children had children." She lifted her cell phone up, showing Renesmee a photo on the screen of a teenage girl who looked startlingly similar to Rosalie. "This is my great-grand niece."

"She looks just like you," Renesmee said in astonishment.

"She's lovely. I haven't seen her in person since she was a little girl."

"You've met her?" Renesmee asked. "Does she know who you are?"

"Well, no. Of course not. I've seen her in passing. I made sure she didn't see me. There's a photo album in the house, it belonged to my mother, and it has a few pictures of me from… before… The resemblance between the two of us has been noted. I suppose this might be how reincarnation was once thought of. A vampire roaming the world, centuries old, and a decedent who someone, through the wilderness of genetics, was born with someone else's face."

Renesmee eyed her, contemplating. "Before you said that you were killed… You never talk about that. At least not to me."

Rosalie took the phone. Pacing it back in her pocket. "I was murdered," she revealed. "I was recently engaged. He was the son of the owner of the bank my father worked at. He was wealthy. So handsome."

Rosalie pulled her close and they started walking again.

"What was his name?"

"Royce. Royce King."

"Did he have something to do with it?" From the strange look on Rosalie's face, Renesmee could guess that he had.

"Royce was the one who grabbed me first. There were others there. They held me down while Royce…" Renesmee watched her struggle, then begin again, "And then later, they took turns. I remember Royce cackling; his face above mine. I remember feeling his spit on my face. I remember tasting my own blood."

The words slipped from Renesmee's throat in a frightened whisper. "Oh, my god."

"They left me for dead. Carlisle always said that it was smelling the blood on the air that caused him to find me."

"And that's why he changed you?"

"I suppose. There was a myriad of reasons for why." Rosalie squeezed her tighter; tight enough to bruise a normal human, but to Renesmee it just felt like a tight embrace. "I try not to think about it, honestly. I still remember everything. I still feel fear sometimes."

"Are you afraid for the girl in the photo? The one that looks so much like you?"

"I suppose I am. Emmett and I like to go back and check on my family, like I said. Make sure everything is okay. She'll be starting college, soon. I think. I'd like to help her if I can. Create an anonymous scholarship fund, maybe. Or something to that affect."

"Does Emmett ever go and visit his human family?"

Rosalie laughed. "No. He had so many brothers and sisters in his human life. Countless nieces and nephews. Umpteen kith and kin, probably spread across the globe by now. He remembers them, but he doesn't want or need to visit anyone left alive."

Renesmee thought of Jacob again, as they continued to walk up the long curving hill toward the house. Beyond them, just past the trees, she could hear the river flowing babbling and flowing. They were nearing the spot where Jacob had parked his bike the night before. Where he had changed. In just a few steps she would be able to see the tree where Rosalie had landed after he pushed her. With each new step forward, the sounds of the rest of the family slowly came into perspective. Her uncle Jasper was out in the yard again, speaking in low tones to Alec, while Alice made adjustments to the cat condo that she had made out of an unused plastic bin. The cat had stayed near the cottage most of the night, but Renesmee hadn't seen it all since she left for school.

When they got closer to the house, Renesmee could see that Alec was watching her. She could tell that Jasper, on the other end of the yard, and Rosalie, still at her side, had noticed it as well. "What's going on with you an Alec?" She asked.

Shaking her head, feeling suddenly frazzled, Renesmee said, "Nothing. He saved my life when I was sick. He knows about another hybrid like me. He' so old."

"Yes, old. There's no mistaking it. He may have a face that looks as young as yours but he pre-dates Carlisle by hundreds of years."

"I feel sorry for him," Renesmee confessed. "He's left everything he's ever known. Life with Aro and the Volturi must have been so horrible. I think he's really struggling with life away from human blood, as well."

"He seemed… intrigued … by you, I think."

Renesmee turned to him. Watching him the way that he was watching her. Studying him, like a book or a movie that she was trying to understand.

"To most vampires, a hybrid, like yourself, is extraordinary. Something they've never seen before, and likely won't ever see again."

"I want to know more about the other hybrid. Desislava. What her life was like. How she died."

Rosalie bristled. "I wish you weren't so worried about death. You'll live for hundreds of years, likely."

Renesmee tightened her lips. Even if she could live for hundreds of years, Jacob couldn't. Her life seemed so uncertain, sometimes, and the stress of it was starting to show on her face. Sometimes Renesmee regretted never getting to be an actual child, she still felt so young and so inexperienced about things, but at other times, she had the mind and body of an adult woman.

"You're thinking about Jacob, aren't you?" Rosalie asked, reading her mind.

"Yes."

"You know," Rosalie added, her voice lowering. "Maybe I picked a fight with him last night."

"He shouldn't have pushed you," Renesmee objected.

"No, he should not have. And if he ever does anything like that to you, I'll personally rip his head off. But… I may have escalated what happened last night, and although I'm not saying he was in the right, by any means, I may have pushed a little too hard, in my own way."

Renesmee took a few seconds to process. She could never condone or excuse Jacob's behavior, but her feelings for him were so strong.

"You know," Rosalie went on. "Alice told me that we were going to have this conversation. I brushed her off, but now it makes sense."

They had passed the big house and together they were walking back into the woods toward the cottage. Before they were fully out of sight, Renesmee had turned back to the house and noticed that Alec was still watching her. He made her feel frightened and delighted.

"Alice does have a funny talent for seeing the future."

Changing her tone again, Rosalie said, "I just want you to be careful. Careful with Alec, if that's who you chose, or Jacob."

"Who said anything about choosing someone?" Renesmee tried to keep her tone light, and teasing, but the undercurrent of her feelings was still very strong. She loved Jacob; she knew that she did. She missed him even know, knowing full well how he had hurt her and her family. Her days in Forks were numbered, and her days with him seemed even less. In her mind, she started formulating how she could find a way to see him again. To both apologize, and to explain.

She was sure Jacob wouldn't come back here, unprompted. Not after she sent him away.

Alec though, still sitting on the porch steps with Jasper, just behind her, was so much like her and her family. Renesmee wasn't even allowed to go to Jacob's childhood home, to see his father or his sisters, for fear of offending them. And yet, Alec, was just a few feet away, the same as her parents and all of her family.

Rosalie interrupted her revery. "I see your mom just up ahead. She looks annoyed."

Looking up, Renesmee could see Bella as well. She was hovering in the doorway of the cottage. No doubt her father had heard the tenor of Rosalie and Renesmee's thoughts as they were coming up the hill. No doubt he knew every thought that had gone through both Rosalie and Renesmee's heads as they made it up the hill.

Renesmee sighed. "Hey, mom."