Disclaimer: I am not Stephenie Meyer and therefore I do not own Twilight or the wonderful characters I screw with.

Swan Song Fashion

August 12th, 2030

Rosalie and Maggie glanced at each other.

Rosalie wasn't sure which of them was actually more surprised that the day had finally arrived. The sign on the building, SWAN SONG FASHION – all shiny and new – was what she was looking at, but it was only the start. It had taken almost a solid two years for her to get a property purchased and the building designed, but she finally had her very own store.

Correction, Maggie and she had a store.

"You going to come inside, or are you two just going to stand outside and admire the sign?" Morrigan asked as she opened the door.

Rosalie glanced at Morrigan, her oldest of six kids. Morrigan was the spitting image of her when she'd been eighteen, but she had her father's attitude. Blunt, sarcastic, and not the least bit polite. Her daughter would be going off to college to start working towards a degree in law enforcement in the fall.

She still wasn't sure how she felt about her daughter following in her husband's footsteps, but she couldn't exactly stop her, besides it wasn't like her daughter was ever going to go into fashion...

No, that was going to be her oldest son.

Rosalie still suspected her two eldest must have had their identities transplanted somehow as kids. After all, weren't boys supposed to go into law enforcement and girls into fashion?

She knew that sounded outdated, but the fact that her Sebastian – with his bleached white hair that was gelled so much that it stuck up, solid black clothing, and nose piercing – was actually a bit of a fashion genius still totally blew her mind.

"Come on, your daughter is getting impatient," Maggie said.

Rosalie rolled her eyes in exasperation but headed to the doors to go inside her store.

The inside of her store felt huge, though she knew it honestly wasn't all that big. Still, the showroom floor was almost 8,000 square feet, and that didn't include the backroom, changing rooms, bathrooms, or offices.

The showroom was an open floor, but ultimately was divided into sections – as was the way with clothing stores – with wedding dresses, ball gowns, and matching accessories on the south side of the store. The main area of the store had more normal clothes, both casual and business attire, and it was split into individual areas for plus, misses, petite, junior, children, and a small section for toddlers. To the north there was a single row of men's clothes; mostly suits with some dress shirts and slacks. And finally, towards the back of the store, was a small area for pajamas and lingerie.

Only some of the clothing in her store was designed by her personally – having finally branched out by 'hiring' a second designer about eight years prior.

And what Rosalie meant by she 'hired' a second designer was that she didn't fire Heidi when her model had retired from modeling. It turned out that Heidi had a real talent for designing different types of sleepwear. And since then, Corin, Noella, and her own son, Sebastian, had all become contributing designers in her business.

Unlike Siobhan – a permanent thorn in her side – who'd ended up having a group commitment ceremony with Liam and Maggie about seven years ago, some of her former models actually did have a talent for things other than just strutting their stuff.

She walked through the dual rows of junior clothing, mostly all designed by Noella and her son. Eventually, still years out, she knew she'd hand the business over to Sebastian. Even though part of Rosalie wished it was Morrigan, Valerie, or even Demeter – which there was still a possibility when it came to the last as her youngest was only four – she was still proud that her legacy would be passed on to someone.

Her two youngest had both ended up being surprises. Her youngest son, Jarlie, had been born seven years ago, and three years later she gave birth to Demeter – Rosalie had finally given into Emmett and named a child after her silicone toy... She was going to make him be the one that explained that to her if she ever asked.

"Is dad going to make the grand opening?" Sebastian asked as he came out of one of the offices in the back.

"He's working today, so I doubt he'll get here for the opening, but he'll be here by closing. Unless Valerie needs him at home." Rosalie still wasn't sure how she felt about Valerie babysitting, but she'd needed Morrigan and Sebastian to help for the day. Besides, in all honesty, Jerrimatt was old enough to take care of himself, it was just Jarlie and Demeter that needed watching after.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Come on, we have three hours 'til we officially open and people will be lining up before then. Let's get to work."

…

Emmett glanced at the text on his phone briefly, glaring in annoyance when he saw who it was from, before focusing back on the meeting with his commanding officer, the chief of the Los Angeles police department.

He was making almost three times as much as what he'd been making when he'd been the chief of police of Forks, commanded well over fifty times more officers, and saw a lot more action. But he still wasn't certain he'd call being the Deputy Chief over Major Crimes as a step up.

The thing was, five years ago it had been move and find a new job or potentially lose the love of his life, not to mention the five little lights of his life, which only a short year later became six. Besides, his big bro had moved to California with his husband and daughter two years before that.

"Are you listening to me, Whitlock?" George Mickulen, the chief of police, demanded.

Not really. The explosion which had leveled a building in the wee hours of the morning and had killed four people was going to keep him late on the one day he absolutely didn't want to stay late. All because that was what he was being ordered to do. He'd rather leave it to one of the commanders under him, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Sir, yes, sir!" he said, a second too late to be believable.

"Sure, you are." George rolled his eyes. "You are a pain in my ass, Whitlock."

"Why thank you for noticing." Emmett was tempted to give a flourishing bow but figured he probably shouldn't test the chief's patience that much.

"That wasn't a compliment, Whitlock."

"Well, it sure wasn't an insult." He grinned.

Emmett would have sworn that his boss was tempted to roll his eyes, but after a moment, he simply said, "You're dismissed."

Emmett quickly left the office, calling back the person who'd texted him.

"What do you want, Bree?" he asked as soon as the line picked up. He hated how he reacted to his eldest. But he hadn't known about her for so long, and by the time he'd actually contacted her and started getting involved in her life, any chance of a real father-daughter relationship was impossible.

Her decisions since had only made that all the more clear to him as she'd been making bad decisions from the day she turned eighteen: moving to Nevada to join a brothel, a few years later becoming a gambling addict, then having drug problems, and on and on it went. But, no matter how disappointed he was in her, he couldn't seem to cut her out of his life completely.

"Couldn't I have just wanted to hear your voice? You are my dad, after all."

The slight wheedling tone to her voice told him more than her words did.

"No. Now, what kind of trouble are you in, this time?"

"I need a small loan. Just a few hundred so I can get my car out of impound."

She called it a loan, but a loan implied it would be repaid, and she'd never paid him back a dime yet – this was hardly her first time asking for a so-called 'loan.'

He shook his head before letting out a resigned sigh. "Give me the amount you need, and I'll send a money order that way."

She did, finishing with, "Thanks, dad."

Then the line went dead.

Emmett shook his head again, then headed out to his car so he could go see the razed building that was going to be keeping him late.

…

Fifteen hours, and too many customers to count, later, and it was just about time for the store to close for the day.

The front door opened five minutes before closing – a chime of the bell that Rosalie was planning to destroy the instant they were closed notifying her of the new guest.

She looked up, hoping it was Emmett. It wasn't. But the guests were not unpleasant ones to see.

Rosalie cringed at the sound of feet running across the store – less because of the sound of the squeaking from the rubber soles on the new tile flooring and more over the thought of the floor getting scuffed.

A moment later, Morrigan slammed into Austin as a little girl with short hot-pink hair darted away from him and headed straight toward her.

Rosalie braced slightly as the girl jumped into her arms.

At eight years old, Sethetta was getting to the point where it wasn't reasonable to hold her. But her two dads spoiled her. And, in all honesty, so did Emmett and her. She was the biological daughter of Austin and a volunteer surrogate from La Push.

It bugged Rosalie more than she liked to admit that Garret and Austin had named their daughter after Seth, the man who they'd both cared for before he'd committed suicide. But she didn't really have much room to throw stones. After all, Jarlie was inspired from a mix of her dad's name and Emmett's dad's name.

She walked over to Austin, still holding Sethetta.

"Where's Gar?"

"He's not feeling well today," Austin said carefully.

If she'd looked more closely at his face, she'd have seen the bags under his eyes and wouldn't have asked.

"I'm sorry to hear that." And she was, though it was more about fear of how her husband would react than the thought of losing her brother-in-law. She did care for Garret, but she'd come to realistically accept the inevitable.

"Docs want him to go on something new, see if it helps him."

"Is he going to?"

"I don't know. If it weren't for –" he cut off his words as he glanced at Sethetta, and then shrugged "– well, you know."

She did. Rosalie had watched Garret struggle with his illness as it got worse and worse over the last few years.

"Where's your husband?" Austin asked, changing the subject.

"Still at work, I'm guessing."

Austin's nose wrinkled as Maggie walked to the front door and locked it.

"You sticking around to help clean up?"

"Might as well. Since muscles isn't here to help you."

She snorted.

…

Emmett had stopped by the store first when he'd finally gotten off for the night, but by the time he got there at almost midnight, it had already been all closed down and dark inside.

So he'd driven on home though Los Angeles traffic was bad enough that even in the middle of the night it had taken almost an hour to get home.

When he got home, he walked through his house, noting the extra pair of sneakers – the type that flash when kids run in them – that were in the entryway, which told him that Sethetta was spending the night.

He peeked in each of his kids' bedrooms on his way to the master bedroom. Little Sethetta was bunking in the same room as Demeter. Jarlie and Jerrimatt shared one room, and Morrigan and Valerie shared another. Which meant that the only one in a bedroom by himself was Sebastian.

Of course, Sebastian's room was locked – something that had been happening more and more in the last two years.

If his oldest son legitimately thought that he couldn't tell that his boy had picked up smoking pot, then he was seriously fooling himself. Emmett knew the smell of marijuana all too well.

Eventually, Emmett was going to have to put his foot down with his son. He looked at the door in contemplation...

But not just yet.

"Honey, I'm home," he declared in a murmur once he entered the master bedroom.

"About time." Rosalie glared at him, but there was no heat in the glare. "You missed the grand opening."

"Blame George." He started stripping out of his clothes.

"Well... You are a pain in the ass, Whitlock." She tried to give an impression of his boss, but it didn't really work for her.

He shook his head. "How was the grand opening?"

She closed her eyes, relaxing on the bed. "Long. Just fucking long."

He sat on the bed before leaning over her. "I love you, you know?"

Rosalie smiled at his words, not bothering to open her eyes. "I love you too."

He leaned down, pressing his lips to hers.