Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all things Twilight.

Chapter 5: Rosalie vs. Bella

I walked out to my car and saw Rosalie leaning against it.

"Going somewhere, Bella?"

I sighed. "Look, Rosalie, I just need to be alone right now. I need to sort through everything."

"Everything like what? Surely seeing us again isn't so taxing."

I ignored her and continued to walk to the driver's side of the car. I stopped suddenly when I felt her grip on my wrist.

"I heard what you said to Alice. It isn't fair; you know she didn't mean it that way. She's been on your side from day one. Even before she met you!"

Rosalie's words barely registered. I continued to focus on her hand closed around my wrist. "Let go of me, Rosalie."

"Not until you listen," she said stubbornly. My vision started to tint red, and I tried to calm myself, but I couldn't as long as she remained touching me. "I'm sure Edward told you that he and Alice are the closest. Well that's why she's taking this so hard. It's not easy for her to be in the middle of this."

She realized I was going to stay silent until she released me. She huffed and finally let go of my wrist. I sighed in relief and continued walking to the door.

"Bella, stop running away! You need to deal with this."

"I'm running away? I don't think so. I think that you all ran away from me as soon as things got tough. I think that my life fell apart completely, and I finally got myself back together. You know how hard it was? To get to where I am now?"

"No I don't know because you're trying to leave before you finish the story. You keep stopping and worrying about everyone's feelings—just spit it out already!"

"I apologize; am I not telling my story fast enough for you? Do you want me to skip ahead a bit? Everybody's dead. The End."

I spun away from her and reached to open the car door. Her hand shot out and closed the door again. My vision tinted dangerously red again. My shield pulsated around me, ready to take on the nearest threat—Rosalie.

My teeth were clenched. "Rosalie, please step away from me."

"Just listen-"

"Get away from the damned car, Rosalie!"

She looked into my eyes, saw my murderous expression and wisely took a step back. I jumped into my car and put my head on the steering wheel. I continued to take deep breaths as I willed my shield to calm down. After ten minutes I was finally back to myself. I looked up to see Rosalie standing in the exact spot she was standing in before.

She made eye contact with me. "May I get in the car?"

I nodded, completely mortified by my earlier outburst. I turned towards her when she got in the car. "Look, Rosalie, I'm sorry about-"

"Bella, stop, don't apologize. I overstepped my boundaries. It's my fault."

I remained quiet as I waited for her to leave the car so I could get going. She sat as still as a statue. I started the car in order to get her moving faster but she only fastened her seat belt and briefly glanced my way. "So where are we headed?"

"I was going back to my house. I don't understand why you would want to come."

"So we can talk," she said simply.

I frowned. "We've already talked."

"Not really, though. You had a small talk with Jasper. I know the two of you were never close, but I would think you would have a little more to say to someone that tried to kill you."

I opened my mouth to speak but she just held up her hand to silence me.

"Then you went and had a five minute conversation with someone you once considered a sister. Is that really all you have to say to her? Five minutes worth of conversation? You barely even sat down in Carlisle and Esme's room. You bumped into Emmett, and then you spent a total of eight minutes talking to Edward. Eight minutes."

"What's your point?" I asked.

"How do you feel? What did you really feel like when we left? How did it feel when Edward left?"

"I already told you," I replied stubbornly.

"No, you just rushed through it at the beginning of your story."

"Isn't that enough?"

"No."

I closed my eyes and took more deep breaths. "I'm really kind of tense right now, as you saw from my little episode, so maybe it's not a good idea for you to be alone with me."

"No problem," she said while pulling out her phone. She sent a quick message then started to examine her nails. A few seconds later, Jasper came out of the house and started walking towards the car.

"You contacted Jasper? Why?"

"He tends to be good with tense situations."

"His gift won't do anything to ease my tension."

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Probably because you won't let it."

"Excuse me?"

"Can't you drop your shield so Jasper can feel your emotions?"

I didn't answer her. I looked past her head and saw Jasper standing next to the car politely waiting to be invited in. He gestured towards the backseat. "May I?"

I nodded and he gracefully folded himself into the car. Without another word, I sped off in the direction of my house. Rosalie looked at the radio and inclined one of her perfectly arched eyebrows.

"Go ahead, listen to whatever you want," I muttered. I still wasn't too pleased with Rosalie and Jasper's invasion of my alone time. I still couldn't understand why Rosalie would want to bother at all.

As if she read my thoughts, she began talking over the music. "Bella, the sooner you're happy, the sooner we will all be happy."

"What does my happiness have to do with yours?"

She turned the music down and stared at me. "You heard Esme earlier. She said that you were the missing piece to our family."

"I know you didn't feel that way. So why do you care now?"

"I don't like to see my family hurting, and since you're back in the family, I don't want to see you hurting either."

My mind rejected her words immediately. "I'm hardly your family, Rosalie."

"That's fine if you don't want to think of me as family, but Edward, Alice and Emmett all-"

"Left me! They all left me! I don't want to talk about this anymore." I reached to turn the music up louder but Rosalie's hand gripped my fingers painfully.

"This is what I'm talking about," she hissed. "As soon as someone says anything about us leaving or how we felt about leaving, you're ready to end the conversation. We can't move past it unless we talk about it."

I stared at her hand, and a growl started forming from deep in my throat.

"Rose!" Jasper yelled, "Let go of her!"

Rosalie immediately let go and looked at Jasper with wide eyes. "I thought you couldn't feel her emotions."

Jasper looked at Rosalie for a long moment then his eyes made contact with mine through the rear view mirror. "I can't feel her emotions, but I can feel the raw power coming off of her in waves, and by the way she was staring at her hands, I don't think she was too happy about being touched."

Rosalie opened her mouth and then shut it. We spent the remainder of the ride in a tense silence. It didn't take us long to arrive at my house. As soon as we did, I ushered Rosalie and Jasper inside. I indicated for them to sit on the couch that sat directly across from my favorite chair. We sat in awkward silence for a few moments. I still didn't understand why they didn't just let me leave.

Jasper finally spoke up. "You've been allowing us to address you as Bella instead of Grace. "

I nodded, hoping they would just leave it alone, but of course my hopes were futile.

"So what's up with the whole 'Grace' bit? What made you change your mind and allow us to call you Bella again? Does the name Grace have any special meaning to you?" Rosalie asked.

"Rose, darlin', don't overwhelm her with questions," Jasper drawled. She ignored Jasper while her gaze burned into me, willing me to answer. She looked genuinely curious, so I tried to answer her question the best I could.

"I…uh…yes the name Grace does have meaning to me. I'd really rather not discuss that now. I guess I'm okay with you all calling me Bella because I feel more like Bella than I have for years. I only talk to a small handful of people at work, and other than that I pretty much isolate myself from the world."

"Why?" Jasper asked.

I shrugged. "It's just easier I guess."

"Don't you mean safer?" Rosalie questioned. I shrugged again, and she sighed in irritation. "Bella, I can tell you are very guarded, but you don't have to be that way around us. We won't hurt you again."

I remained silent while I pondered her words. She and Jasper watched me with hopeful eyes, and I could see their kindness shining through. My heart thawed slightly. Would they really not leave me again? Could they actually care?

Rosalie sighed. "I know I'm not as…animated with my emotions as Esme or Alice, but I am trying. So can we really talk now?"

I was still hesitant about what she wanted to talk about, but I reluctantly nodded.

"I want to say that I'm sorry for how I treated you in the past," she whispered.

"Don't be," I shrugged. "You explained your reasoning and I understand." She must not have been satisfied by my response because she kept speaking.

"When Edward decided to leave, I was on board with his decision." This did not surprise me at all. She probably did a summersault when she found out they were leaving. Seeing the bitter expression on my face she hurried on. "Not because of my dislike for you. I actually agreed with what Edward said."

"You wanted to stop me from being a monster?" I asked as I tried to keep the acid out of my voice.

Rosalie's back stiffened. "I did not choose this life for myself."

"It wasn't about you, Rosalie. You wanted me to 'get married' and 'have kids'? What about what I wanted?" I could feel myself getting angrier by the moment.

Rosalie's voice strained to remain calm. "You were too young to know what you wanted. You didn't know what you were giving up!"

"Do you really think that was the key to my happiness? Or yours? Do you think I wanted to 'grow old' with someone when the love of my life was frozen forever at seventeen?" I finished in an outraged voice. I felt my shield pulsating around me, ready to strike.

Rosalie's beautiful golden eyes darkened then narrowed. "Being a mother is the highest honor one could ever receive. It's a little more involved than a teenaged love affair," she said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, is it? And here I thought life involved a little more than having kids. I thought it might include finding and accepting yourself and most importantly loving yourself for who you are and what you are! Through that journey, if you can find someone who can love you the way you deserved to be loved, then you can bind your lives together. Children would be the tangible item of that love. Of course, children would be wonderful in that aspect, but is it really more important than the whole journey? Is it really more important to have children than it is to love and find yourself? How can someone think about raising kids if they are broken inside?"

"Broken? You were just experiencing the human emotions of love and lust. That's nothing compared to how strong our emotions are now. Humans are so fickle. You claim to have loved Edward, then you turn around mere months after he leaves and fall in love with someone else," she spat. Her words pierced through me causing me to wince.

"You assume to know my feelings?"

"I was a human once! Human emotions are just a fraction of the emotions we are capable of."

"Rose," Jasper said softly, struggling with the strong emotions emitting from her. "The love Bella shared with Edward was extremely powerful and equal. I felt it myself. You shouldn't question her feelings." Rosalie only hissed in response. My vision tinted red. She dared to question my love for Edward? Did she believe me too weak to love him? My shield was ready, awaiting the command to strike.

"Would you trade Emmett in order to become a human again?" I asked coldly.

"That's not the same! I-"

"What's not the same about it? You want babies right? Emmett can't give you that, so who needs him."

"Bella…" Jasper warned, while gauging Rosalie's anger.

"You shut your mouth! You don't know anything," she growled. Her eyes were pitch black, darkened by her rage. I knew Jasper was attempting to calm her because her shoulders relaxed a fraction, but her eyes still screamed murder. My emotions could not be touched. I felt the anger continue to surge through me, and I felt the need to hurt Rosalie just as she'd hurt me. So I said something unforgivable.

"Your last night as a human," I said slowly. "I bet you wished you could have lived through that just so you could have had a bastard baby by your fiancé or his friends."I knew I had gone too far but my anger allowed me to feel no remorse.

Three things happened at once. Jasper reached a restraining arm towards Rosalie. She deftly maneuvered away from his arm and was instantly charging towards me. I held my hands in front of me with my palm facing her in mock surrender.

"Stop!" Jasper yelled, but it was too late. With an ear splitting crash, Rosalie ran head first into my shield. The force knocked her backwards and sent her to the wall. Plaster fell all around her as she slid to the floor, showing a large dent in the wall. I knew she wasn't hurt so I crouched, expecting her to immediately right herself to fight back. I did not, however, expect to hear her sobbing. She buried her face into her hands and began to shake violently with the force of her sobs. My heart twisted painfully. My earlier words played in my ears over and over again. I had taken her most painful memory and used it to attack her. You should have never gone to the Cullens to begin with. This remorse…is horrible. Too much…

Shame threatened to drown me. I looked at Jasper, but he remained standing in the middle of the room with his eyes shut and his mouth nothing more than a thin line. He was clearly feeling everything Rosalie was feeling. I felt horrible.

"Rosalie," I croaked. She continued shaking, causing my heart to ache worse. I crossed the room and sat beside her on the floor. "I'm so sorry, I…I didn't mean it."

She sobbed harder but made no other move to acknowledge that she heard me. I heard a soft groan from the corner of the room and saw Jasper clutching his hair with a look of anguish on his face.

"Please…" I said softly, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Please don't…don't be sad."

Jasper sat on the other side of Rosalie and put his arm around her shoulder. I expected him to look over at me with hatred in his eyes, but they only held concern.

"Rose, let's talk about this. Don't bottle these feelings up. Let's work through this," Jasper pleaded.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again.

"Why?" she whispered harshly as she finally regained her composure.

Why? There were so many whys floating through my head. Why did Alice find me? Why did I go visit the Cullens? Why did I bring up my past even while knowing it would bring unbearable pain to me? Why did allow I Rosalie and Jasper to come over? Why was I so cruel to Rosalie? Why? My silence only infuriated her further.

"Why are you apologizing?" she spat.

Stunned by her question, my eyes widened. "Rosalie, I had no right to say those awful things-"

"Did you mean it?" she interrupted as she looked at me from the corner of her eye.

"Whether I meant it or not is no reason-"

"Did you mean it?" she asked again.

"I'm sorry," I answered instead.

She glared at me, then roughly shoved me away from her.

"Damn it, Bella, no! You don't get to do this!" she said, standing instantly and stalking towards me. I jumped to my feet and backed away from her, not wanting to cause her anymore pain.

"Rosalie," I tried again, "Please forgive me I had no right-"

"Stop it!" she shrieked. "You don't get to apologize! You don't get to rip me to shreds and then apologize for it. You meant it, so own up to it."

"It's not my place-"

She hissed at me, causing me to stop talking again. "I'm a big girl, Bella. I can handle a few tough words. You probably just said what everyone has thought at some point." She finally stopped walking towards me and sat down on the couch. She buried her head in her hands.

"I don't deserve him," she mumbled.

"No, Rose," Jasper said, horrified by her words. "Don't say that."

My heart twisted once again as remorse flooded through me. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just kept my opinions to myself. I swore softly to myself, causing Rosalie's head to snap up in my direction.

"Don't." Her voice was icy as she stood with her head held high. "Don't pity me. I can fix this."

"Talk to me, Rosalie, let me help," I pleaded, desperate to redeem myself.

She laughed humorlessly. "Like I need help from you. I don't need help from anybody!"

"It doesn't show weakness if you ask for help," Jasper said quietly.

"You want to help me?" she sneered. "Can you give me back the last nine decades that I've spent wallowing? Can you make it not hurt every time I pass a woman cradling her baby to her bosom? Can you stop me from wanting it all? An eternity with Emmett and parenthood? Can you stop the hurt?" she finished in a pinched voice while looking at me with pain filled eyes. I flinched away from her heartbreaking stare and shook my head slowly from side to side.

Suddenly, she pushed me roughly across the room, propelling me into my bookcase. It crumpled under my solid stone frame.

"Then don't say you want to help me because you can't! Hell, even if you could, I don't want your help." She flashed across the room and crouched so she was eye level with me. "So you can just keep your help. I. Don't. Want. It," she spat.

Anger flashed through me as I saw her retreating into her normal ice-cold demeanor. I stood up slowly and glared at her. "That's too bad." I said softly.

"What's too bad?" she asked coldly, showing me a glimpse of the ice queen I remembered from 25 years ago.

"It's too bad that you don't want my help. Because you have it. You made me bring you over here. You gave me this big speech about how we have to talk to each other so we're going to talk. Just like you wanted. This was your idea—don't back out of it." I walked to the couch and sat down. I patted the seat next to me and looked at her expectantly.

"You're kidding me," she said in a flat voice. Jasper crossed the room and sat on the other side of the couch, leaving the middle seat open for Rosalie.

"What is this? An intervention?" she questioned, incredulously.

"No, but it might help if you talk about it," I said calmly.

"How?"

"I don't know Rosalie," I said with exasperation, "I just can't let you be in pain. I have to fix it."

"Still the same selfless Bella, I see," she sneered.

"No, I'm not being altruistic. Your pain causes me pain, too."

"Why?" she asked softly.

"I don't know, but you're hurt and that hurts me, so sit down so we can both feel better. Please?" I added as she continued to stare at me.

"Fine," she huffed as she came and plopped in the seat between Jasper and me.

"So, we'll talk and everything will be fine?" she asked sarcastically.

"Well, no that's not…I don't know how this whole talking thing works remember?"

She sighed then remained silent.

"Do you love Emmett?" I asked quietly.

Her gaze hardened. "What kind of idiotic question is that? Of course, I love him."

"Tell me about him."

"This is stupid," she huffed. I didn't say anything as I absently traced patterns on the arm of the couch. After ten minutes of silence, I was ready to give up, but she finally started talking.

"He's so strong," she whispered, "Not only physically but emotionally." I didn't want to risk looking at her, so I just kept looking at the couch.

"And he's so funny; he made me laugh at times when I thought I could never laugh again. He saved me," she finished in a whisper.

"Saved you from what?" Jasper questioned.

"From a life full of despair. From reliving that awful night time and time again. He made me whole." She stood suddenly and rushed to the nearest wall and punched a hole through it. "Ugh!" she screamed. "I'm so selfish! I brought him into this existence. The very least I can do is love him with everything that I am and be perfectly content."

"Emmett knows that you love him. You had something ripped from you your last night as a human and those feelings have never really left you. You can't blame yourself for not letting it go. As vampires, not only does our physical appearance not change, but our emotional state is extremely hard to alter." Jasper stated.

"I know," she said softly. She walked across the room and sat in her previous spot between Jasper and me. Then she did something unexpected. She adjusted herself to where her head rested on my lap. Then she bent her knees so her feet could rest on Jasper's lap. I was shocked for a second, then tentatively started running my fingers through her golden hair, marveling in their silk like texture. We sat this way, in silence, for about an hour. I felt peaceful just holding Rosalie's head and soothing her.

"She would have been beautiful," she said quietly.

"She?" Jasper questioned.

"I always knew I would have a baby girl." I could hear the smile in her voice.

"What would she have looked like?" I questioned softly.

"She would have my hair color but Emmett's curls. Her eyes would be a beautiful sapphire, and they would twinkle whenever she got into mischief. When she would smile, she would have Emmett's perfect dimples," she said wistfully.

"Beautiful," Jasper whispered.

"What would you name her?" I asked.

"Emalie."

"Emily, what a pretty name," I said.

"No. Em-a-lie, a combination of Emmett and Rosalie."

"Oh," I said, nodding my head with understanding.

"So you picture having a child with Emmett?" Jasper asked.

"Yes," she answered immediately.

"Did you love him?" I questioned, knowing she would know I was speaking of her fiancé.

"I loved the idea of getting married. Of being a mother. Of being wealthy."

"But did you love him?"

"No."

"So why would you question the love I had for people when you never even experienced it yourself?" I asked as I felt my previous anger start to return. She didn't answer me for a minute and I became even more frustrated because I couldn't see her face. Finally, she spoke in an almost inaudible voice.

"I'm sorry."

I took a deep breath and released it. "I'm sorry, too, Rosalie, for saying something so awful."

"It's okay. I think I understand why you said it. I shouldn't have questioned your feelings. If someone implied that I didn't love Emmett, I would rip their arms off." She turned her head toward me and smiled ruefully. "Or at least I'd try to rip their arms off."

I smiled a little at her words, knowing she was talking about my shield. We sat for a little while longer before Rosalie started to speak again. "Now that was a talk."

"Yeah," I agreed, suddenly feeling exhausted for using so many emotions at once.

"So that's one down…six to go."

My head flopped against the couch and I groaned. Jasper and Rosalie immediately started laughing at me, and after a while I joined in, too. And Jasper and I listened to Rosalie's laughter because it was so beautiful, like church bells. It must have been a different sound than her past laughter, because Jasper just looked at her in awe. I smiled at him because I knew that Rosalie was finally healing. She was finally grieving for the child that she already loved. The child that she could never have. The child that would never be.

End Notes:

Please don't be upset for the lack of Bella's past in this chapter. She's still having a bit of trouble opening up.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Sorry that the rest of the Cullens were absent. I have not written the next chapter yet but it should be half present half past. I'm really not sure yet...Anyway I hope no one was offended by Bella's rant about parenthood. That was not my intention.

Thank you for the encouragement. This is my first fanfiction so hearing that someone likes my story makes me feel like I'm doing something good with it. As always, I'd love to hear what you think.