Sunday morning began with a hard click and a familiar soft guitar melody before the full track kicked in on her radio clock. Her kaleidoscope eyes fluttered open, her mind dredging itself out of the blissful dark abyss of dreamless deep sleep as she stared up at her blank ceiling. For only a moment, she felt out of place, as if she had not yet laid within the confines of her own body, not settled within the space of her own mind.

Welcome to your life, there's no turning back. Even while you sleep, we will find you-

And then she remembers the events of the day before, flickering like static images in a View-Master toy.

-acting on your best behaviour, turn your back on mother nature. Everybody wants to rule the world.

Jules groans lowly rolling over stubbornly to bury her face into her pillow, unable to ignore the adhesive patches on her back underneath the large faded pink t-shirt now twisted around her. They served like reminders now, her aching bruises. Sore mementos she could not ignore.

It's my own design, it's my own remorse. Help me to decide, help me make the- most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever. Everybody wants to rule the world.

She wished she could pretend the day before had never happened. That if she just shut her eyes and fell asleep again she didn't have to face the morning, try to delay facing reality. It isn't long before she succeeds, surrendering into the lull of darkness once more as she hugged the pillow her head lay upon, curling her long legs up beneath the warmth of her twisted comforter. Her sense of time and space fades off as the song continues on behind her.

The rapping on the door is loud enough to wake her with a jump as she launches upright. Five successive knocks in a rhythmic pattern, a pause, and two more solid ones- it wasn't the sound of the knock that confuses Jules, it's the door it comes from. The blank backdoor she had painted a smooth white halfway through last week to prep for her next mural- the one no one ever really came to and the one she snuck into the house through when she snuck out for a date.

She drags herself out of bed begrudgingly, rubbing her eye with one palm as the other reached out for the door handle, only frowning in confusion at the blonde smiling at her in the dismal morning light. Rosalie wore a light brown coat over a colour blocked sweater with a slightly scooped cream turtleneck that her swanlike neck still peeked above from, olive coloured skin-tight pants nearly coating her toned thighs like paint before her knee high black boots began. Her golden hair was twisted up away from her face in a loose updo that Jules instantly recognized from her Mamie Éloise's collection of vintage magazines. It suits her face far too well, the classic red painted lips briefly stealing her breath away. "Morning."

"I thought I told your family I needed some time to process." Jules' deep voice was hoarse with exhaustion, crackling like a fire as she groaned and stretched out her arms above her head, cracking her shoulder. She stifles a yawn behind the back of her hand, missing the way Rosalie's smile grows.

"And you'll have it." Rosalie promises with a soft chuckle. "You can have the rest of the day with Chief Swan but I'm not leaving you to mope alone in bed all morning until he comes home. We're going for a drive."

"Oh we are, are we?" Jules raises both her eyebrows unimpressed, her tone dry.

"I was going to surprise you but someone decided to sleep in past her alarm last minute." Rosalie shot her a look, still smiling. "Come on, get dressed and meet me out front. We can have pancakes at the diner."

Jules is a little more awake by the time she comes out her front door, only to back up a little in confusion with a hand out as if to steady herself and a double take with her chin dipping in at the unfamiliar car on her curbside. Rosalie leans against its hood with a wickedly smug smirk like a model for a high fashion magazine spread. It's shiny and red like her brand new BMW, but the classic late '50s corvette's polished exterior is the colour of fine wine and dark rouge lipstick, deep and decadent in shade with shiny chrome fittings really highlighting it's perfectly restored condition. Even from a distance Jules could see that the gorgeous car had been cared for like a prized work of art, and as a car enthusiast she could not help but to ogle.

"I knew you'd appreciate my baby." Rosalie looked positively delighted as Jules made her way over to her as if in a trance, eyes glued to the car as the dolled up blonde pulled the passenger side door open for her. The convertible top was down, and Jules wondered if she would regret leaving her hair down. "Hop in. Let's get this show on the road."

"You're in a weirdly good mood today." Jules squinted slightly in suspicion as she manoeuvred her awkwardly long legs into the compact space within. The one downside of most classic cars built for performance and style over practicality was that they were not made for awkwardly lanky teenagers.

"And you're back to your regular morning charm." She cracks a playful smirk as she presses the passenger door back into place. "I'll be right back, you forgot to lock your front door."

Jules reaches a hand out with a lazy flair, fingers twisting as if turning an invisible key in her grip, unaware that Rosalie could hear the locks turn in their chamber across the little stone path that led to the front door. "Done."

Except Rosalie isn't impressed, all merriment draining right from her expression as she dropped her voice a little lower. "Are you mad? What if your neighbours saw that?"

"What, me waving in the direction of a door while we were having a conversation?" Jules raised an eyebrow at her chiding tone, waving her hand about for emphasis. "It's really not that big a deal, I hardly even use my gift."

A big fat lie, but Jules was certain she had gotten away with it as Rosalie frowned down at her- in fact, if she was being really honest with herself she was certain some part of her still tired brain wanted to show off to her pathetic schoolgirl crush. Clearly that had backfired, Jules thought to herself as she considered the worry in Rosalie's gaze. "Are you getting in or not?"

"Yeah you need coffee." Rosalie rolled her eyes as she made her way around to the driver's side in the dewy, dim morning. "Which I can't really stand the smell of, by the way, especially the way you drink it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jules huffed as Rosalie climbed into the car and shut the door behind her. Rosalie belongs in the vintage car, she decides, like a show model for the magnificent sports car with its fine lines and pretty, sleek curves. Jules begins to wonder for the first time how old she really is. How old they all really were. "You want me to stop drinking coffee?"

"Heavens no." Rosalie snorts as she switches on the ignition, distracting Jules a little because it's not as simple as the turn of a key. It takes a few fluid movements before the engine comes to life, lulling into a powerful rolling purr. "It does quite well to mask your scent to a degree, so do your paints. I'm just not fond of the smell of black coffee."

"Well too bad." Jules took a bit of pleasure at the easy smile on Rosalie's face as she pulled out onto the road, picking up a cassette that was halfway out back into the clearly upgraded stereo system. She doesn't recognize the song, it's cheerful and jazzy and very clearly old by its lack of clarity in its sound production. Jules takes a guess it's from the fifties like the car.

"I want to start being honest with you." Rosalie explains. "Vampires have heightened senses- smell, hearing, eyesight. Edward can hear your thoughts from the other side of school, no matter how many walls are between you both. I want you to be able to be aware of our abilities so you can have your privacy from now on when you care for it."

"Thank you." Jules frowns a little, afraid of what Edward had already seen in her mind and what he might have told his sister. "Has uh…has Edward told everyone what I've thought of you all?"

"Only when you've been afraid of us, and rightfully so." Rosalie supplies, relaxed like she always was when she drove Jules to school every morning. "We needed to know how to get close to you without you catching on, so he's helped there but he hasn't said much else. Why?"

"Just curious." She tries to play off casually.

Rosalie rolls her eyes with a little proud smirk. "If you thought less of me than you do now, I'm not going to hold it against you sweetheart. There's time yet for you to change your mind."

Jules turns her gaze out onto the pine trees that fly by, the cold autumn air in her hair as it flew back away from her face. She slips her elbow up over the top of the door, relaxing as she makes a mental note to thank Edward for keeping her secrets- especially about Rosalie. "Well don't give me a reason to change my mind then."

"I do intend to be your best friend by the end of this trip, just so you know." Rosalie warns her playfully, and Jules rolls her eyes. "Even if I have to endure coffee to get you to stop being such a grump."

It wasn't long before they were sat by the window in the corner booth Charlie Swan had spent most of his life in and Jules had sort of inherited as her 'usual table',tucking into two maple syrup drizzled pancakes topped with blueberries and powdered sugar while Rosalie had a water. She sipped her second cup of black coffee, eyebrows still furrowed at the blonde who had just told her that they didn't eat- ever, tone low so as not to be overheard by the rather crowded diner full of townsfolk that glanced over their way repeatedly. "Never?"

Rosalie shakes her head, wrinkling up her nose delicately as she folds her arms over the table between them. "It tastes like dirt."

"How do you know what dirt tastes like?" Jules twitched up an eyebrow only to get a glowering look in return. She takes another draw of coffee and sighs. "I'm going to miss food the most then."

"I thought we weren't going to talk about that." Rosalie reminds her, gaze softening.

"Well I cannot stop thinking about it." Jules shrugs, resting her elbow on top of the table next to her plate, her knuckles supporting her leaned head as she took another bite of pancakes.

"Sometimes I envy Edward's gift." Rosalie confesses as she raises an eyebrow at the blonde. "I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish I could see the way you see the world."

"Well how do you see the world?" Jules gets curious, watching as she considers her casual question. She turns away form her, golden eyes staring out at the main road and the woods beyond. Rosalie's expression reflects off the cold glass window, the melancholia Jules often saw in her returned.

"As it is." Rosalie settles on an answer at last, meeting her own gaze in her reflection. "You see the world as it could be."

"It's not hard to see the beauty in life." Jules watches her, cocking her head as Rosalie turns back to her after a moment, eyes still distant. "You mourn your humanity."

It isn't a question, but rather an accusation. Jules continues when Rosalie merely stares back at her. "Why?"

"Wouldn't you?" Rosalie deflects.

Jules shakes her head. "I shall mourn the things I shall never do. Take care of my Uncle, be there for him after he has spent so much of his life without anyone to do so. Watch my best friend get married, help her raise her children. Have my own. If what you have seen is true, if I am to become one of you and not die for good, then it is not the end of all things."

"It is the end of most things." Rosalie argues forlorn. "The things that matter most."

"I've seen what it is to be alive and not live at all." Jules hazel eyes blaze into hers, her every accented word filled with absolute belief. "The true tragedy would be having eternity at your fingertips, wasting it mourning a life that you could still live."

It's somewhere between a snort and a breathless singular laugh that escapes Rosalie as her ruby lips quirk upward. It doesn't meet her eyes, there's something so full of yearning within those clear near-yellow pools that reach out with a spark of desperate hope as she leans her chin on a neatly manicured palm. "Well aren't you the darnedest thing?"

"Thanks, I think." Her smile is wry, and this time Rosalie laughs properly tossing her head back, the bright sound twinkling in the air between them. The familiar flutter twitches within her stomach, the tiny butterflies she'd tried to bury for her best friend attempting to fly out of their cage.

They're gone for hours, just listening to old music from Rosalie's cassettes, interrupting their comfortable silence with occasional bouts of conversation and laughter. It's as easy as breathing, and Jules feels herself getting a little lighter with each turn of the clock. They return before lunch just as the rain begins to pour, getting caught in it and laughing as they race to get to the back door that led straight to Jules' bedroom. Jules excuses herself to take a shower, returning to her room in a bathrobe surprised to see Rosalie already completely dry, dressed in her clothes.

"I took the liberty of using your dryer, I hope that's alright." Rosalie explains from where she sits on her bed with her worn copy of The Great Gatsby in her lap. She'd picked out the green fleece-lined jumper Jules liked to wear the most at home with a pair of knit blue sleep shorts, and she tried not to let her reaction show to seeing the blonde dressed in her clothes. If Rosalie notices she doesn't show it, eyes focused on the page she was reading.

"It's fine. Charlie's not home yet, he must be caught up in this storm." Jules heads for her wardrobe, towel wrapped around her hair.

"I can text Alice to check if you'd like." She offers. "Do you want some privacy? I can wait out in the living room until you're dressed."

"Nothing you haven't seen before." Jules doesn't bother, simply slipping on her underwear and the black pair of the same shorts as Rosalie beneath her robe before taking it off so all the blonde on her bed could see was her back. She doesn't remember the bruises there, but Rosalie does as she goes to pick out a matching bra.

"Wait." The blonde makes her stop, turning slightly to look at her over her shoulder as she hears the rustling of her comforter. "Where did you put the muscle relief patches Carlisle gave you?"

Oh.

"Desk drawer." Jules holds her fluffy grey bathrobe against her front as Rosalie walks over to the desk to her side, finding the pack of patches with ease. Jules had taken the old rain-soaked ones she'd put on at night off in the shower and forgotten about them, but now that Rosalie had mentioned them she could feel the soreness of the places where her back had collided with the tree.

Rosalie's fingertips are cold as ice and more soothing than Jules had thought they would be, melting a little as they ghost over the bursts of purple and yellow that mar her pale skin. She holds her breath, waiting, listening to the rain pouring down her windowpane as she wonders what the pretty blonde was doing behind her.

The sound of the foil packet tearing cuts through the otherwise tense silence, Jules breathing in the near eye-watering strong odor of the Bengay patches. Rosalie takes her time, setting the patches smoothly over her skin one by one, leaving no folds or air bubbles behind. Jules shoots her a grateful smile as she moves away to toss the trash into the little bin under her desk. She pulls on her bra quickly, a faded yellow t-shirt following suit and then a thick blue flannel shirt she'd stolen from Charlie's collection upstairs. She pushes her wardrobe shut with her foot behind her, turning to face Rosalie who's smiling softly at her book once more. She tosses her hair forward, starting to wring it and dry it with her soaked towel. "So when do you want me to leave?"

"You don't have to." Jules rolls her eyes.

"You wanted space, remember?" Rosalie raised her brow back at her.

"Can we please stop pretending like this wasn't your plan all along?" She snarks as Rosalie snickers on her bed. "I'm going to switch on my hairdryer. It's going to be loud."

"That's not how my hearing works, I'll be fine." Rosalie bats off her concern. Jules leaves the room briefly to put her wet towel on the towel dryer in the bathroom, returning and sitting down on her desk chair before she began to dry her hair. Rosalie glances over the top of the book at her on occasion, seeming to bask in the mundane domestic scene in front of her. When Jules is done at last she puts away her hairdryer, shaking her hands through her long blowdried hair to settle it before she slips into the bed on the opposite side from Rosalie, under the comforter where the vampire was settled above it. Her arm moves out to the side of her and the journal from the day before floats her way, Artline pen still latched onto the leather binding. "I really do wish you'd do your homework."

"I'll do it tonight." Jules isn't bothered, flipping through the art-filled pages until she finds a fresh one. "Go back to reading."

"You're going to draw me?" She sounds taken aback, making Jules' lips twitch upward.

"I was under the impression you would enjoy becoming a work of art." She can't help but be playful.

"Oh sweetheart, I'm already a masterpiece." The familiar confident drawl is back, making Jules chuckle as she began to move her pen over the page. "Why do you want to draw me?"

"You said you wished you could see the world the way I do." Jules reminds her, shrugging. "It is easier to just show you, hmm? Starting with the way I see you through my eyes."

"That's a waste of your time." Rosalie furrows her brows together. "If I were you I'd be making a list right now of all the things I want to do and feel before I die."

"I have the rest of forever to do a lot of those things." Jules reminds her.

"Not all of them." Rosalie argues softly.

"Hey. It's my life, hmm?" Jules tries to get the blonde to meet her gaze, shooting her a soft smile. "If I want to spend it showing my apparent new best friend how to live, then that is what I shall endeavour to do. All I want in the time I have left is to make the people I love feel loved in return. That includes you now as well."

"You'll still have me after." Rosalie shakes her head. "You only have months. You should be with-"

"I will." Jules cuts her off, trying desperately not to think about it. "But right now it is raining and I am comfortable and warm in my bed and if this is the last time I feel what it is to be warm, then this is the moment I shall cherish. With you."

This time, Rosalie's smile meets her eyes, and Jules is quick to try to capture it upon the page. For Jules, this was enough.