HIIIIII!

Here is the next chapter! Based on the "OVERWHELMING" responses to the decision-making process from last chapter (aka, Thank you MDBEU! :D) I've written this chapter with Leah and Rye in mind. Hope you guys enjoy, and leave a review!

Chapter Twelve: Sun and Moon

Bella's POV:

I bent over the man, whose eyes had suddenly flown open, a few moments after Jacob had left. His eyes darted around as if in a panic, and I could feel the room heat as he panicked. I didn't need Jasper to know that he was freaking out internally, yet still unable to move anything except blink and look around.

Using my most soothing tone possible, I sat down, and took his hand instinctively, careful to be gentle. "Hello, it's good to see you awake. Hmm… how to do this…"

Edward leaned forward, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. "Blink once for yes, twice for no, sound good?"

"Just blink three times if you need to just blink," I added, not wanting him to try to keep his eyes open for an uncomfortable time.

The man waited a minute, before blinking once.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He waited for a second or two before blinking once. Then a pause. Then twice more.

"Don't you know?" I asked, confused.

"He's talking about physically versus emotionally," Edward said, before wincing slightly. "He's physically healing very fast, even if he can't seem to move yet. But emotionally, he's warring within himself at the moment."

I gave him a sympathetic look. "Hopefully, you'll feel like yourself sometime soon."

Edward frowned at a thought than seemed to run through the man's head, but he didn't want to clarify for me. I didn't ask. This man was taking my complete attention at the moment. I grasped his hand gently again.

"What's your name?" I asked.

The man just stared at me out of the corner of his eyes. Edward leaned down and whispered into my ear.

"He says his name is Rye Tanner," Edward whispered gently. "He's roughly seventeen years old."

I looked back at the man with sympathy. He was much too damaged to be only seventeen. It wasn't right.

I noticed the startled look in Rye's eyes.

"Edward is a telepath," I explained. "He can read minds."

Rye's eyes widened for a second, before he looked over at Edward, who was smiling slightly.

"Yes, I can hear you loud and clear, you don't need to shout it," he said. Seeing Rye's wide-eyed reaction, he had tested out if what I said was true.

"My name is Bella Cullen, and this is my husband Edward," I said softly. "Are you comfortable?"

Rye looked at me for a moment. He blinked once, but then he shut his eyes. I looked at Edward.

"Again, he's physically comfortable, but he's hurting inside," Edward said, wincing as he felt some sort of pain inside the man. "Who is she?"

As soon as I heard the word 'She', things began to make a lot more sense. Rye could not contain a hiss of air as suddenly his wing sprouted out from his back again. I gently lifted him, letting his wing fall over the side of the bed. When I put him back down against the mattress, he was looking at me with a strange look than he had last worn. Edward chuckled.

"He calls you the 'Touch'," Edward explains. "Because he couldn't see who was helping him while he was unconscious. And he—"

Here Edward frowned a moment. Rye looked away, and I could've sworn that the glimmer in his eye looked like embarrassment, or perhaps even fear.

"—He is surprised that we haven't shown any signs yet of confusion or horror," Edward finished. He smiled wryly at Rye. "You do understand what we are, right?"

Rye rolled his eyes. I didn't need Edward to translate that for me. Fair point.

Rye glanced back at me and Edward for a moment, before the tip of his wing jiggled a little in movement.

"It means we drink animal blood, as opposed to human," Edward says, answering Rye's unspoken question. "Animal blood dilutes the color to gold. Human blood makes our eyes crimson. Don't worry, your blood doesn't really smell appealing to us, we won't drink you."

I nodded. His blood didn't smell like any other's I'd ever smelled. It smelled sort of like roasted flesh. If there was any word I could apply to the smell of his blood, especially as opposed to other humans', it would be 'charred'.

Rye just cast a glance towards Edward after he said that. Edward arched an eyebrow, before the smile slowly fell off his face. He looked truly saddened by whatever Rye was showing him.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says slowly, after a few minutes. "Though I can assure you that nobody in this house would ever do that. We pride ourselves in, for the most part, never having tasted human blood."

At this point, Carlisle walks slowly into the room, having heard Edward and I talking to someone or other. He smiles when he sees Rye awake in a manner more befitting a father's gracious smile than a doctor's business one. I can see the suspicious glint in Rye's eye waver, as Carlisle's natural charisma begins to weave itself over him.

"Ah, our mystery patient has awoken," Carlisle says, stepping forward. In his hands, he holds a stethoscope, and a small thermometer. "May I?"

Rye glances between Edward, myself, and Carlisle, before Edward looks at Carlisle and nods. Carlisle gently begins probing along Rye's legs and arms, feeling for broken bones. Then he measures his heart rate and temperature, while Edward and I continue to talk to him.

Just as Carlisle is finishing up his examination, the front door opens. It's forceful, but not so hard as to bang open. I hear tromping footsteps coming up the stairs, before Jacob appears, standing in the doorway to the room. I gasp.

Leah is in his arms, completely limp. She's covered in a towel for her own decency, but there was not much else in the way of clothes. Carlisle appeared next to Jacob, and made a quick examination.

"She's exhausted, doc," Jacob said. "Said she found her imprint, but she lost him, and can't find him. Keeps saying—"

"He's gone," Leah mutters, just barely audibly even for my vampire ears to hear. "D-'sn't m'tter, he's gone…can't find h'm…"

"Yeah, keeps saying that," Jacob says. "I told her I'd try to—"

Now it's Edward's turn to interrupt Jacob's sentence. He puts a hand to his head and hisses with the intensity of some thought or other. He turns to face Rye, whose eyes are now so wide I thought they'd burst out of their sockets. He's glancing right past us, straight at Leah's prone figure.

"She'll be fine, you don't need to worry that loudl—Hm?" Edward says, as Rye sends thoughts his way. His eyes widen in surprise, and immediately curiosity is eating through me. "That is very interesting… No, she'll be fine, I'll swear to it. She just needs some sleep—"

"Edward," I begin, "What is he thinking?"

"Hm?" Edward says, tearing himself away from Rye's thoughts for a moment. "Oh, I'll… I'll tell you in a minute."

So I force myself to wait. I feel Alice and Jasper coming out of their room to check on why there's a sudden avalanche of wild emotions coming from all of us in the guest room. Alice dances into the room and plops into a chair, her expression going cloudy as she begins looking and sorting the future she can see.

Edward resumes talking to and answering Rye's thoughts.

"You don't need to worry, she'll be fine. Would you rather we put a spare cot up here? You could keep an eye on— Well, I suppose I can understand that. Maybe a dividing curtain as well? You could keep an ear on her? Great," Edward said, before turning to Carlisle. "He wants to be able to hear her, but he's afraid of her seeing him. He wants us to put up a dividing curtain between them, so she doesn't have to wake up and see him."

I glanced at Rye on the bed. "But why doesn't he want her to see him? I mean, is he just embarrassed?"

Edward looked back towards Rye. His expression became sympathetic.

"Ah, how I know that feeling," he said softly. He turned to me. "He doesn't want to scare her with what he might be, or whatever it is that he has the ability to shapeshift into."

Rye glances back at Leah's prone form, as Carlisle returns into the room, carrying a collapsible cot in one hand and a long rod that appears to be a curtain-rod in the other. He unfolds the cot as fast as possible, and Jacob places Leah gently on it. Esme walks into the room carrying several white linen sheets, before stopping by Rye's bedside first.

"Oh! It's nice to see you awake," she says, handing the sheets to Edward and I while she introduces herself to our guest. "My name is Esme Cullen. I can see you've met my husband Carlisle, my son and daughter-in-law Edward and Bella, and those two are Alice and Jasper over there. Can I do anything to help you? Is there anything I could get you?"

Edward glanced back over at Rye.

"He would like some water," Edward said, before placing the sheets over Leah, who was still mumbling about he's gone.

"Of course," Esme said, patting Rye's hand affectionately. "I'll be right back."

She rushed down into the kitchen to get some water, while Jacob loped over and knelt next to Leah, looking over her with a worried expression. Rye glanced at him for a moment. Edward smiled again.

"Don't worry, it's not like that," Edward said softly, answering some unspoken question.

"Edward," Alice and I both said at the same time, both of our patience running dry. "What is he thinking?"

Edward glanced up at me and smiled. "Didn't you guess?

"Leah is his imprint."

Leah's POV:

It hurt so much. The pain of losing him, of knowing there was no realistic way I could find him. But I didn't really care. I'd scour the globe to look for him. I would find him again. And I'd track every vampire I could find down, and force them to tell me if they'd seen my imprint.

I didn't care how long it took. I'd find him again.

Pain turned into resolve and anger, which in turn turned into a raging fire, fueled and stoked into an inferno. I felt invincible, like nothing could stop me once I got started on this quest to find him again.

Gosh, listen to me. I sound like some sort of frikkin' princess, obsessed with finding my prince charming again. But deep within, I couldn't really find it in myself to care that much. I needed to find him again, and I knew I would go as far as it took to find him again.

Now if I could just wake up from this blackout…

Rye's POV:

I had glanced around, my eyes finally open again. I looked around me, at the small room I appeared to be in.

My initial thought was still rage. I wanted nothing more than to leap out of this bed and charge through any vampire that might stand in my way. She needed me. That Jacob person was going to find her before I did. I needed to move.

But a face became visible in my peripheral. Her skin was pale, her hair a mahogany…

The vampire from the forest. The one with the strange, golden eyes. Just behind her, another vampire appeared, his eyes also golden, and his hair bronze-colored.

The female began to speak, and her voice was a soothing sound to my panicked brain, her touch felt familiar, and it was gentle. "Hello, it's good to see you awake. Hmm… how to do this…" she said, glancing down at my hand, which was resting lightly in her own.

The other vampire leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "Blink once for yes, twice for no, sound good?"

"Just blink three times if you need to just blink," the female quickly added, her expression radiating something resembling sympathy.

I paused. Should I trust them? It didn't really seem I had a choice at the moment. I still couldn't move my legs. I blinked once.

"Are you okay?" the female asked, upon seeing my confirmation.

I waited for a second. Was I okay? My first, immediate answer was no. But as I thought about it, I realized that she was probably talking physically. I blinked once. Then I realized that with the amount of pain I was feeling emotionally right now, the answer was still no. I blinked again, this time twice.

"Don't you know?" the female asked, confusion spreading across his face.

I didn't know how she was expecting me to answer that. But I was substantially surprised when the male spoke up, answering for me.

"He's talking about physically versus emotionally," he said, before wincing slightly as if in pain. "He's physically healing very fast, even if he can't seem to move yet. But emotionally, he's warring within himself at the moment."

The woman gave me a sympathetic look. "Hopefully, you'll feel like yourself sometime soon."

I first felt comforted by the sincerity in her tone, but her words simply rang in my head, triggering the loathing I felt for my other half.

'Like I want to feel like myself again,' I thought.

The man frowned again for a moment, and the female grasped my hand again, her expression gentle and curious.

"What's your name?" she asked softly.

Again, I didn't know how she was expecting me to answer. The only thought I had was that she didn't know I couldn't move anything but my eyes. But I was surprised when the male leaned down again and whispered into her ear.

"He says his name is Rye Tanner," the male whispered gently. "He's roughly seventeen years old."

The female looked back at me with sympathy, but I wasn't really paying much attention. My eyes went wide as I studied the male vampire, who studied me just as fervently.

"Edward is a telepath," the female explained, and my surprise skyrocketed. "He can read minds."

I felt my eyes widen even more. I glanced at the male named Edward.

'Can you hear my thoughts!?' I wondered in my head. Edward just smiled at me.

"Yes, I can hear you loud and clear, you don't need to shout it," he said.

"My name is Bella Cullen, and this is my husband Edward," the woman said softly, almost crooning it. "Are you comfortable?"

I looked at her for a moment. I blinked once, but then I shut my eyes.

'Depends on your definition of comfortable,' I thought, hoping Edward would translate for me. I showed him memories of the pain that was ripping through me, versus the feeling of the mattress below me, which had been a luxury I had been much too long without. I felt like I was on a cloud right now, but my heart wasn't into it.

"Again, he's physically comfortable, but he's hurting inside," Edward said, wincing as he felt some sort of pain inside me. "Who is she?"

As soon as I heard the word 'She', I realized that I had accidentally given it away to Edward that it was because of a girl. I didn't want her to be on these vampires' radar, but there was nothing I could do at the moment. Suddenly, I felt a stab of pain shoot through my spine as my wing popped into existence, and I could not stop the hiss of air that escaped through my mouth.

I finally knew why I felt Bella's touch was familiar. She was the Touch. She gently lifted me, letting my wing fall over the side of the bed in a comfortable position. Then she lowered me slowly back down, gently depositing me once more on the heavenly bed. Edward chuckled as he evidently read my mind again.

"He calls you the 'Touch'," he explained to her. "Because he couldn't see who was helping him while he was unconscious. And he—"

It was here that I couldn't stop my bewilderment. 'Why aren't you guys terrified of me?'

Here Edward frowned a moment. His sharp, studying gaze made me feel a little uncomfortable, and I quickly looked away.

'I mean, it's not like I'm human…' I began in my thoughts. Realizing I was speaking to a vampire, I quickly added, 'I mean, I know that I'm pretty odd even by your standards. I'm an outcast of the freaks of nature. And my appearance… looks can be deceiving, but what if what looks like the human part of me is the deceptive part?'

"—He is surprised that we haven't shown any signs yet of confusion or horror," Edward finished. He smiled at me, a wry lopsided grin blooming across his face. "You do understand what we are, right?"

I rolled my eyes. 'Not really what I was talking about.'

I glanced back at Bella and Edward for a moment, before suddenly I felt feeling in my wing that was hanging off the bed. Experimentally, I jiggled it.

'Why do you guys have gold eyes?' I thought, my curiosity leaking through my thoughts. 'All the other vampires I've known have red eyes.'

"It means we drink animal blood, as opposed to human," Edward says, answering my unspoken question. "Animal blood dilutes the color to gold. Human blood makes our eyes crimson. Don't worry, your blood doesn't really smell appealing to us, we won't drink you."

I felt my eyes harden a little, as the words triggered a sort of flashback to me. Ramona. She had promised she wouldn't drink me either, and while she hadn't while I had known her, I had the feeling she might've, someday. Edward arched an eyebrow as he studied my expression and thoughts. Feeling somewhat petulant I supposed, I showed him the full memory, before the smile slowly fell off his face. He looked truly saddened by my past with vampires.

'Like I haven't heard that before,' I added in my thoughts, surprising myself even with the amount of acid leaking into the unspoken words.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says slowly, after a few minutes. The sincerity in his tone surprises me, but I'm still suspicious of these vampires. "Though I can assure you that nobody in this house would ever do that. We pride ourselves in, for the most part, never having tasted human blood."

At this point, another vampire walks into the room. He looks much older than the two vampires next to me, sitting on my right. He also looks like a windblown Greek god. He smiles warmly at me as soon as he sees that I'm awake, and I'm taken by surprise once again as I find his smile disarming. I try to keep my guard up, but something in the way he carries himself promises that he won't even dream of harming me.

"Ah, our mystery patient has awoken," the newcomer says, stepping forward. In his hands, he holds a stethoscope, and a small thermometer. He must be a doctor or something. I would've snorted if I could. A doctor vampire. This day was getting weirder and weirder by the moment, and I wasn't sure if it would end up in my favor or not. At the moment, I was inclined to think I was in trouble, but everyone seemed so nice so far. "May I?"

It took me a second to realize that he was asking permission to examine me. I glanced at the three vampires I could see. They all seem quite passive, at least at the moment. I decide that it probably couldn't hurt.

'I guess so,' I think, knowing that Edward will translate.

He looks at the newcomer and nods. The doctor gently begins probing along my legs and arms, before he measures my heart rate and temperature. As he does this, Bella and Edward continue to talk to me. I am somewhat surprised by the gentleness in the doctor's touch, and find that it's getting harder and harder to keep my guard up against these vampires.

I can tell that the doctor is almost done with his examination, when I see Bella glance towards the door. I follow her gaze, and see another newcomer. This man is much tanner, he can't be a vampire. His dark hair is swept to one side as he glances at me briefly. I can feel the heat emanating from him, my own fiery aura drinking up the added heat. I didn't know what he was.

The doctor vanishes from my side, and leans over something in the man's arms. The doc is in my way, I can't see what he's holding…

"She's exhausted, doc," the man said. "Said she found her imprint, but she lost him, and can't find him. Keeps saying—"

"He's gone," a voice mutters, just barely audibly even for my ears to hear. "D-'sn't m'tter, he's gone…can't find h'm…"

My heart leaps into my throat.

"Yeah, keeps saying that," the man finishes. "I told her I'd try to—"

'NOT HER!' I can't help but shout into my thoughts. Nonono, she's in the house of vampires!

The girl I wanted to protect so desperately from this danger was unconscious, I was unable to move, and we were surrounded on all fronts by vampires.

Edward suddenly puts a hand to his head and hisses with the intensity of some thought or other. He turns to face me, but I only lock my eyes on her limp figure in the man's arms.

'IS SHE DEAD?!' I panicked. 'OH MY GOSH IS SHE DEAD?!'

"She'll be fine, you don't need to worry that loudl—Hm?" Edward says soothingly.

A thought suddenly flashes through my mind before I can stop it. I curse silently. The image that passed through my train of thought obviously showed how much I wanted to protect her, and what she means to me.

As if the vampires needed more reason to hurt her, if either I or she got in their way.

His eyes widen in surprise. "That is very interesting… No, she'll be fine, I'll swear to it. She just needs some sleep—"

"Edward," Bella begins at his side. Her expression looks like something is paining her only mildly, "What is he thinking?"

"Hm?" Edward says, tearing himself away from my thoughts for a moment. "Oh, I'll… I'll tell you in a minute."

I can see the visible impatience play out on her face, and for a single moment, I find it very funny, before my current situation renders me terrified once again. Two more vampires walk in to the room, seeming to check on what's going on in this room. The small, pixie-like one seems to fluidly dance into the room and plops into a chair, her expression going cloudy suddenly like she was going into a trance.

I can't stand it. I have to know. 'Edward,' I think.

Edward turns to me.

'Will she be alright?' I ask, glancing at Leah as the man shifts his weight.

"You don't need to worry, she'll be fine," Edward reassures. "Would you rather we put a spare cot up here? You could keep an eye on—"

'No, I don't want her to see me,' I thought, glancing down at my ruby-patched skin for emphasis. I take a deep breath to calm myself down again. For some reason, I can tell that he's being genuine. She'll be fine.

"Well, I suppose I can understand that," Edward says, relenting, "Maybe a dividing curtain as well? You could keep an ear on her?"

I thought about that for a second. 'Yeah, that's not a bad idea.'

"Great," Edward said, before turning to the doctor-vampire. "He wants to be able to hear her, but he's afraid of her seeing him. He wants us to put up a dividing curtain between them, so she doesn't have to wake up and see him."

Bella glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes. "But why doesn't he want her to see him? I mean, is he just embarrassed?"

Edward looked back towards me, the question evident in his eyes as he listened.

I sighed lightly, my heart wrenching a little. 'I don't want her to see me— to see… this. I couldn't stand it if she were to scream at me, or even wrinkle her nose in disgust.'

His expression became sympathetic. "Ah, how I know that feeling," he said softly. He turned to me. "He doesn't want to scare her with what he might be, or whatever it is that he has the ability to shapeshift into."

I glanced back at the girl's prone form in that other man's arms. But he doesn't handle her like a boyfriend or any such thing. I look to my side to notice with a slight jolt that the doctor-vampire and another vampire have entered the room. How many vampires are in this place?! The doctor has already set up a small cot, and the other man, and Jacob places Leah gently on it.

The other vampire is a woman, and she has an aura around her that is so inviting it seems to draw me in. I watch as she walks over to me and kneels down by my bedside, her golden eyes boring into mine.

"Oh! It's nice to see you awake," she says, her voice warm with love and sympathy and care. "My name is Esme Cullen. I can see you've met my husband Carlisle, my son and daughter-in-law Edward and Bella, and those two are Alice and Jasper over there. Can I do anything to help you? Is there anything I could get you?"

Edward glanced back over at me to interpret.

I could feel a blush color my cheeks at her undivided attention, which was strange, but not uncomfortable. I didn't know if the blush was visible against my ruby secondary skin.

'Well, some water would be nice,' I thought timidly. I didn't like all the attention on me, after so long of loneliness.

"He would like some water," Edward translated, before placing the sheets over the girl at my side.

"Of course," Esme said, patting my hand affectionately. I felt the same surge of strange, but not unpleasant, feelings ride through me. "I'll be right back."

She rushed down into the kitchen to get some water, while the other man loped over to the girl's bedside and knelt down. I could feel an anger I didn't know I had suddenly flare. Maybe I had misread him? Was he her boyfriend? Why did I care? It was her life, not mine. I had no claims to her, but I couldn't help but feel overwhelming jealousy. Edward smiled at me again, amused by my suffering. I didn't have any rage to spare for him, all of it focused into worry and anger at this man kneeling over her form.

"Don't worry, it's not like that," Edward said cooly. Instantly, I knew he was being truthful, and the anger melted out of my glare. It was strange to be on such an emotional gear-shift.

"Edward," Alice and Bella both said at the same time, both of their faces twisted with impatience to know the answer to their questions. "What is he thinking?"

Edward glanced up at Bella and smiled. "Didn't you guess? Leah is his imprint."

Carlisle and Esme were packing up their room. It was time to move again. Edward was packing up the last of his music into the Astin Marten, Alice was bemoaning the loss of her larger closet space than the one she would have in the next house, with Jasper trying to calm her again.

"When are the new tenants coming?" Esme asked as she rushed about the room at an immortal speed, packing.

"Actually, they should be here any moment," Carlisle said.

"Any moment?" Esme asked, putting the last of her clothes into a suitcase. "Why didn't we start packing earlier?"

"Well, honestly Alice didn't see that the realtor had accidentally said that they would be moving in today. She only saw that the realtor noticed the mistake in the writing a few hours ago," Carlisle said, expertly sliding some of the emergency bags of blood into a cooler, where he kept it aside.

"Oh, what a silly mistake," Esme said, understanding as always. Carlisle smiled. He loved his wife.

Edward ran in, his expression blank. "Alice says they're coming soon."

With that, he picked up several of the suitcases and threw them in one of the cars outside. Esme fluttered for a moment, seeming to be trying to pick up the pace further. Carlisle finished his packing and turned to help her.

When all the packing was finally done, Esme reached into a drawer and pulled out a white envelope, with her elegant cursive, 'to the new tenants'.

Carlisle noticed it. "What's that?"

Esme smiled. "I thought I'd just leave our new tenants something to make their day."

Carlisle smiled, his wife's caring nature was a true fresh breath of air to him. An island of sanctuary amidst the stormy attitude and disrespect of the world around him. He wrapped his arms around her for a moment, enjoying the moment. Alice rushed in at that point.

"They're right around the corner!" she squeaked, before darting out again.

Carlisle and Esme broke their embrace, and Esme left the note on the bedstand.

Within moments, there was no more trace of vampires in the house. It was as though the house had never been inhabited.

The sounds of a car door opened outside. Two humans stepped out.

"Mom, why did we move out of the apartment, only to move into another one?" a familiar voice said with exasperation.

"Because, Bella, I told you. That neighborhood was just not safe enough for me," another voice said. The door opened, and Renee stepped through, followed by Bella.

"But mom, you said yourself when we moved there that it was one of the nicest—ah!" Bella said, as she stepped in the house. She inhaled deeply, forgetting her sentence. "It smells so nice in here!"

Renee raised an eyebrow, and took a hesitant inhalation. She couldn't detect anything other than a pleasant sweetness to the air. A honey and lilac sort of scent. Roses.

"You're right, it does smell nice," Renee said, but there was a thought itching at the back of her head. She could've sworn she had smelt this mix of scents before.

"Y'know, it kinda smells familiar…" Bella said softly. She walked over to one room and opened it. She inhaled very deeply. "Kinda like I've smelled it before. I really like it…"

"I was just thinking the same thing," Renee said, as she walked to the master bedroom. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd—

Suddenly, in a jolt of recognition, she realized where it reminded her of. Forks. Vampires. Alice. It was the scent of vampires. But it didn't have the same sickly-sweetness that it usually had had. Renee frowned. Why didn't it smell… unappealing to her? Every other time, there was a manageable tinge to the odor that automatically itched her nose. But now, it was just gone…

Her eyebrows shot up. She glanced at the door, and quickly locked it for a moment. She couldn't let Bella know if this was what she thought it might be…

She reached inside, and felt a thrill of panic as she didn't feel the wolf in her anymore. She tried phasing. The vein in her forehead stood out with the effort she was exerting, but the wolf did not show. She paled for a moment.

She had lost her wolf?

True, she hadn't transformed in a long time, there hadn't been a need. Vampires had not been in Phoenix for so long. It was a safe place. She'd noticed the streaks of gray hair begin to show, but she had used it in Bella's presence, noting it aloud to make sure that her daughter knew she was aging like a normal human being. But she hadn't realized that her wolf was slowly laying down to hibernate within her.

Her wolf was gone.

She sat down on the bed for a minute, staring at nothing in particular as she pondered over that. How did she feel about losing her wolf?

Honestly? She felt more human than she had in a long, long time. She would miss her wolf, but it was refreshing to be able to act human, and feel like she wasn't lying to everyone around her by doing so.

There was one issue, though. She was a single mom, with a child being hunted by vampires. How was she going to keep Bella off of James' radar? How long would James stay off of her trail?

It seemed like since the last time he'd called, Bella had been safe. Alice had been right, so far, like she always was.

Renee breathed in again deeply. She missed her friend.

That's when she noticed the envelope, sitting on the bedside table. She reached over, recognizing Esme's handwriting. She grinned. What were the chances that they had chosen the same place to live, consecutively?

She opened the note, and read it all the way through. She smiled as she was touched by Esme's loving nature, for the first time in a very long time.

The doorknob to her room jiggled for a moment. Finding it locked, it fell silent for a moment. Then a knock followed.

"Mom, are you okay?" Bella's voice asked through the door.

Renee got up from the bed, tucking the heartfelt note into the nightstand quickly. She unlocked the door and smiled at her daughter. "Yes, Bella, I'm fine. What did you need?"

Bella didn't put anything to her mother's stranger-than-normal behavior. "I just thought I should ask; it seems like the previous owners forgot some of their stuff when they were moving. I found this on the floor of one of the rooms."

Bella held a CD case in her hands. Renee looked at it for a moment, recognition crossing her face.

"Ah, Debussy. A very good composer," she said, remembering all the times she had heard Edward's music through the door of his room. Debussy had been his favorite. Renee handed the disc back to Bella. "Well, they're gone for now, Bella. I'm sure you can listen to it, seeing as you found it."

Bella took the CD case with her, studying it as she walked out of the master bedroom. A few minutes later, Renee heard the notes of Debussy's Clair de Lune wafting through the halls, as Bella had evidently put it in her portable CD player.

Renee could hear Bella play the whole disc through, without pausing. When the disc ended, Renee smiled as she heard Bella start it again. She must like it quite a bit.

Renee smiled, before lying down on the master bedroom's large, extremely comfortable bed and closing her eyes for a much-needed nap. She had lost her wolf, but as far as she was concerned, perhaps it was time to grow up a little, to move on. Bella wouldn't need her protection for much longer, before she was a strong adult herself. And the way Alice had said that Bella was meant to be her friend left Renee thinking that Bella would be seeing more of her favorite vampires, who would protect her at all costs.

So, what did you think? Renee had to begin aging at some point to keep her human facade from Bella's eagle eye for details.