Hi, so here is another chapter and we are finally seeing the plot thicken. We have one more chapter before the Volturi arrive and then we hit the action.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Chapter 22-The Edge Of Winter

Rosalie's point of view. The Snow sticks to the ground, the Cullen's spend what might be their last Christmas together and Rosalie spends a night with her niece before she spends what might be her last night in her own room with her husband (before the Cullen's move to the clearing)

"Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we are proud of. We are what we chose to be" Graham Brown.

Christmas was coming and the snow was sticking to the ground. Two things that this time last year had made them all happy and relatively relaxed (as well they could be when Edward had refused to come home and Alice had bemoaned that she had been forced to leave Bella as though they were lovesick swans pining for each other—which actually was not far off from the truth when you thought about it).

This year it was different.

This year should have been a happy one. The mess that was the human Bella Swan had now become the vampire that was Bella Cullen. Charlie Swan had something that resembled a relationship with his newborn vampire daughter and half vampire granddaughter and no blood had been shed on the carpet which as Emmett pointed out at this stage in the game, was a first.

Christmas should be a happy time, before they had come to Forks for the second time it had been, they had shared many happy memories. Carlisle and Esme had, had a way around Edward and Alice not finding out about their Christmas presents trying to find someway to surprise them each and every year and Emmett nearly always got her something, they worked on their cars together and Edward would sit at the piano and play with a glee that was always fun to watch. Last Christmas had been miserable. This Christmas was supposed to be the best one yet.

And yet the snow had stuck to the ground. So that was the end of that.

They tried to make it a good Christmas. Rosalie would rather burn…well…actually that was a rather unfortunate choice of words given what was coming but she would rather see her cars burn than admit it (better) that the wolves helped. Jacob and the rest of his horde (apart from Leah) had spent some part of Christmas Day with them. They sang their way up to the house (horribly, out of tune and in a way that had Edward wincing) before presenting Esme with flowers as a thank you for feeding them.

Esme had beamed, pointed them in the direction of the food she had been making and then had gone to find a vase. Rosalie thought they might have put together the idea on the way over but she supposed the thought did count for something and anything that made Esme smile like that in the current climate made Carlisle happy and anything that made Carlisle happy at the moment made the rest of them relax considerably.

Nessie went to Charlie's and so Emmett sneaked Rosalie off for a hunt.

"I like it" he said when Rosalie commented on the stench in the carpet. "Reminds me of home, all my brothers piling in on the carpet and just being…I don't know…it's kinda nice"

She turned to look at him, she had never before heard Emmett speak much of his home life. She had took his private nature on the ins and the outs of life in Tennessee the same way he had taken her views on Royce, as the nature of privacy within a marriage. Now he was being open with her though and it made her wonder why he was choosing now to tell her things he had not told her in sixty or so years of being together.

Things he had not bothered to remember but was remembering now.

She didn't know what to make of that.

And she found that she was scared to ask him why he was telling her everything now, as if he thought to tell her everything before the world as they knew it imploded on them.

"Emmett?"

"Hmm?"

"I do love you, you know"

"I know" Emmett said quietly. He reached out and took her face in his big hands and he stared at her as if he was memorizing her features and she stared back at him in much the same way. She wanted to eat him and drink him and have him take her to the floor and break her and put her back together again with pleasure like he had done when they had come together so long ago. She had taken a leap of faith then that this man would never hurt her and it had been the best risk she had ever have taken.

"I wish to God we'd have met when we were human" Emmett said quietly. "I don't know why I just…I just do"

"You think it would have made a difference?"

"I think I would have stood outside your window and serenaded you into the night if I could have done, we could have ran away together, I can imagine right now my mother's face if I'd have brought you home in all your silk organza and white hair ribbons"

Here Rosalie laughed at the image.

"I don't know" Emmett said easily "It's just something I think about. The unlived life"

"I don't regret this one" she said quietly. Children aside (because they could never have that conversation bar the one painful time that she had confessed she would trade all of it up for one) she had no regrets.

She'd found the prince, she'd had half the happy ending.

And she had made that enough.

"I know" he said easily. "It's…" and then he trailed off and she turned. It had been snowing heavily and now it was sticking to the ground in more than a few clumps. Within days it would be enough to leave footprints through.

It was here.

It was coming.

The edge of winter was upon them. The edge of…everything.

"No fucking regrets" Emmett said staring at the snow and then he smiled and it was her smile, the one that showed off his dimples, the one that she had fallen in love with all those years ago and the one she had never fallen out of love with. Her smile. For her. On her Emmett's face.

Another thing she never got about Bella. Why would you want Edward when Emmett was in the room?

Stupid little human turned actually not terrible vampire.

She laughed at the thought and Emmett kissed her and they carried on in their perfect little snowy moment trying to make the most of the time that was slipping out of their fingers as fast as the snow that wasn't sticking to the ground was melting.

"Auntie Rose, Auntie Rose! Look what Jacob got me"

Nessie didn't usually talk that much but she was bounding off the porch her hand outstretched and Rosalie caught her around the middle resting her on her hip and breathing in that sweet little scent. The bracelet was shoved in front of her face and she noticed it and wryly though that it had probably made Edward's Christmas. The piano which was playing in the big room stopped for a second as if her brother had heard her thoughts and had stopped as if to wrap his fingers around her throat.

Prude she thought.

Edward hissed his annoyance for a second and then carried on playing after Esme gently asked him to continue. No doubt she was with Carlisle in the library doing…well…whatever it was that they did.

Nobody ever wondered more than that. The consequences were too…ugh.

She stepped into the house Emmett behind her, Nessie on her hip to see Bella staring at the fire with a pensive expression.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes" Bella said but it didn't meet her eyes. She turned her attention back to the fire as if it held all the answers to her questions and Rosalie shot Edward a look with a small shrug. Nessie didn't seem to realise her mother was melancholy she was already scrambling for her book. Edward gave a long drawn upon sigh as if he was being tortured on the block. Rosalie looked down at the one that Nessie had given her (clearly under the instruction that she was to read her sleep—not that Rosalie was complaining) and found herself grinning.

"Harry Potter?"

Nessie nodded.

"Told you" Emmett said from where he had made herself comfortable at her feet leaning back against the couch so she could run a hand through his dark curls if she was so inclined too.

"Told you it was money worth spending when they first came out Edward"

"It's not classic literature" Edward growled stopping a bit to harshly on the pedal for the piece he was playing.

"What you talking about?" Jacob said looking at Edward as if he had been wounded. "Harry Potter's one of the finest pieces of fiction out there"

The problem with Jacob Black, Rosalie thought, was that he was serious. And despite what he had gone through he was also sixteen. Like all of them he was old before he deserved to be. And to a sixteen year old Harry Potter was the hight of literature.

Also to her husband.

And her niece.

So Rosalie cuddled down with Nessie on the couch and opened the book to the first chapter and with everyone else listening in and the snow sticking to the ground and the end of the world as they knew it just around the corner, the Cullen family settled down for what they thought (then) was their final Christmas.

Emmett took her to the floor of their bedroom in their little place away from everyone else and took her hard. If she was human it would have been the very definition of rough sex and yet it was oddly gentle. Emmett would rather stick his right hand into the fire himself than hurt her she knew and to see him like this, gentle but still commanding, desperate for her, aching for her, was something that she had never gotten used to despite the long years of their marriage.

She clung to him with everything she had, she matched him thrust for thrust, lick for lick, kiss for kiss, touch for touch. She wanted to mould him into her very body and keep him there so she could remember. Edward and Bella had taken Nessie home and Jacob had slunk off to see his father for the first time since Bella and Edward had gotten married. Carlisle with a soft smile had suggested he and Esme go for a walk and that had been that and so it was just her and Emmett. Everyone else was out hunting and it was just her and Emmett and if truth be told everyone could be watching them but Rosalie would not notice.

This was it. This was their last night, tomorrow they would be at the clearing and it would all be over one way or the other. They were setting up camp and stolen little moments like these would be left to the past. They would go into fighter mode and she would hold her husband's hand and kiss him and then she would fight to defend her family from the danger that wanted them all gone.

And who knew? Perhaps Carlisle was right and there was a heaven for them after all? Perhaps there was something outside of this immortal life, somewhere where she and Emmett could finally grow old together.

It was a nice thought she supposed.

Her orgasm took her then and she gasped her golden hair spilling over her shoulders in waves and Emmett linked their hands together and started again and she loved him, she loved him, she loved him, she loved him.

She never wanted that night to end. That glorious night of lovemaking, of saying the things that needed to be said without saying the words. She never wanted it to end. She never wanted any of it to end. She never wanted him to let her go.

"Never" Emmett growled into her ear as dawn crested the horizon, a breaking dawn disrupting their night of never ending love. "Never am I letting you go Rose. I am never gonna let you go. You're my wife, my love, my angel. I am yours until the end"

She would have cried if she was able to but she couldn't. Instead she kissed him and she tried to pour all of the words into that kiss that she could.

Besides, she and Emmett had never needed fancy words to say what they thought. They had not needed the words that Edward had used with Bella, clever words that unintentionally manipulated as well as explained. They had never needed Jasper and Alice's manipulations of the future or the emotions. They had never needed the strong commitment that Carlisle and Esme had to family and to peace.

They had just needed each other.

Inevitably though dawn broke through and the vampires that had respectfully given them space came back. Rosalie dressed in jeans and a sturdy jumper. She put her leather jacket on over and she zipped up her boots. Emmett looked at her from where he was getting dressed and he held out his hand and she went to him willingly.

"Whatever happens" he said quietly. "Tonight I will remember."

He didn't say more than that just held up her hand and kissed it palm to palm.

And with that he took her hand and she followed him out of their room, out of their home and towards their gathered family as they walked to the clearing that would decide their fates, for better or what was most likely for worse.

Rosalie didn't look back.

She didn't need too.

So yeah this was mostly fluff/angst/we are going to die smut ish chapter and the next one is more family feels angst before we head to the angst. We have about three/four chapters of the Volturi and then an epilogue so this story is plodding to the end nicely.

Next Chapter-In the clearing the Cullen's share a moment as they wait for the beginning of the end. The Volturi arrive and the battle lines are drawn.