A/N: Sorry for the big "psyche!" with the re-posting of Chapter 19. I noticed a formatting error, and the only way I could figure out to fix it was to delete the chapter and re-post it.

*~*~*~*

The sun had just barely risen in the sky when there was a soft but unnecessary knock at the door. I knew it was Carlisle.

Edward? May I come in?

God, please, yes! "Of course, Carlisle." The relief I felt was almost palpable. Finally he was here and could hopefully give me the reassurance I was now desperate for. In however many hours it had been while I sat here helpless at Bella's side, she hadn't so much as flinched. Her absolute stillness filled me with dread.

"How is it going?" my adoptive father asked quietly as he glided over to the side of the bed.

I squeezed Bella's unmoving hand reflexively. "I don't know, Carlisle. She hasn't moved at all. With all of the others, they made noise, they..."

"They writhed in agony?" he filled in ruefully. He stood still for a moment, listening. "Her heartbeat sounds good, Edward. She's alive." He leaned down and gently lifted one of her eyelids, trying to see if he could determine anything from the state of her pupils. "It looks to me like she's fine. As fine as she can be in the circumstances, of course."

"Then why is she so still?"

"That was the whole point of trying the morphine, remember? On the chance that it would lessen the pain for her? The others didn't have it, so we have nothing to compare this to. But as long as her heartbeat is strong, I don't think there's anything to worry about." He rested a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me.

We were both silent for a moment, simply watching Bella's face. She was so still it was eerie, but Carlisle was right about her heartbeat: it was as vital as ever.

"Did you have a look at Renesmee?" I asked.

"A quick one. She looks as healthy as a proverbial horse, so I wanted to get up here as quickly as I could. I'll go back downstairs and conduct a full examination of her in a few minutes. Assuming I can pry her out of Rosalie's arms, that is," he chuckled. He gave my shoulder another squeeze, this one from one proud father to another. "She's beautiful, Edward. Perfect. I can't believe how much she looks like both of you already."

"I know." I couldn't keep the smile from my face, despite the condition my child's mother was in at the moment. "I hope Rose will let Esme hold her."

"Esme was negotiating that when I came up here. I don't think she's past claiming priority by playing the grandmother card."

"I guess that means you have a grandfather card as well," I glanced up at him with a small smirk. The idea of Carlisle—who could barely pass for 30—as a grandfather was somewhat amusing. At the same time, however, his calm demeanour and obvious wisdom made him perfect for the role.

"I suppose I do," he chuckled again, equally amused at the thought. He frowned slightly then, thinking of the wolves and of Jacob Black—who was apparently still parked in the living room downstairs. "I'm surprised Jacob is still here."

"Didn't anyone tell you?" I asked with a sigh. "He helped me with Bella...and everything...but then he...imprinted on Renesmee."

Carlisle's eyes widened like saucers. No, no one had yet shared that bit of news with him. "Pardon me?"

"You heard me correctly."

"But she's just an infant..."

"Apparently it can happen that way. One of his friends is in a similar situation...he imprinted on a two-year-old." I had plucked that bit of information out of Jacob's head some time ago, noting how bizarre he felt it was. But other than that, I hadn't thought much of it at the time. It had certainly never occurred to me that the same thing might happen with my child, when he hated vampires so much.

Carlisle shook his head back and forth slowly, thinking that over. "I suppose it makes sense, in a way. It's involuntary, as I understand it, and happens on first sight."

"He's not necessarily happy about it, either. He knows that it's rather...awkward."

"You're taking it well."

I huffed. "I have other things on my mind at the moment. I'm choosing not to think very hard about it right now, or I might want to leave this room and tear his head off. And I really don't want to leave Bella alone while she goes through this." When my mind had travelled in that direction, I had been suppressing the urge for violence by forcing myself to remember that he couldn't control it, and how pure his thoughts had been.

"Has he left the house at all? Do the wolves know the baby has been born?"

I paused for a few seconds, casting my mind downstairs to Jacob's. I actually hadn't even thought about that until now. "No...he hasn't changed back to wolf form since he's been here."

"Seth and Leah are probably wondering what's happened to him."

I could feel my brow crease in a frown. "That hasn't occurred to him. He's been focused on nothing but Renesmee."

"I'll ask him to check in with them when I go back downstairs. It's not good to leave them wondering, and I want to know what the other pack is doing." He was thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder what they'll make of this situation. As I understand it, this makes Renesmee...family for them now."

I shuddered at the idea of my daughter as part of a wolf pack, and again forced down the beginnings of a profound rage. "I thought the whole point of imprinting was that a wolf finds his ideal genetic mate, who can produce with him the best wolf offspring." Another involuntary shudder passed through me at the idea of my daughter mating...with anyone. I was starting to have a new appreciation for how Charlie had felt about me all those months. I had to admire now the fact that he had never actually unholstered his gun. "I just can't imagine how a half-human, half-vampire child fits that bill."

"Neither can I, at the moment. It's one of the many puzzles we'll have to solve where she's concerned."

I didn't like the way he said that, and looked at him with some alarm. "Puzzles? Do you think something's wrong?"

"Oh, no, not at all, Edward," he assured me quickly. "But it's not as though she's quote-unquote 'normal', either. She's not even a day old and she understands us, for example. I don't know why or how that is, or what it means. But I suspect that every day with her is going to yield a whole new set of surprises." He smiled. "Hopefully they'll all be good surprises. So far they have been."

As if on cue, Renesmee made an appearance, still wrapped in her white blanket but this time cradled in the arms of her grandmother. Rosalie trailed along behind, Emmett at her side.

"I heard you say you wanted to do an examination, darling," Esme explained. "She's awake, so I thought I'd bring her up here where your equipment is." As Esme approached my chair at Bella's bedside, Renesmee lifted her head to peer around her blanket, her chocolate brown eyes wide, observing. Daddy. Mommy.

I couldn't suppress a smile. Would I ever get used to that? It occurred to me that it was a good thing I got to listen to her think the word for a while before she would ever say it out loud. The first time she did that my heart was likely to shatter into pieces from the sheer joy of it.

Esme thoughtfully passed Renesmee into my arms, knowing that I hadn't seen her for a few hours. She beamed at me and kissed the top of my head. "Edward. She's so perfect. She looks just like you. Both of you."

I nodded and carefully edged the blanket away from my daughter's face. I ducked to press my cool lips to her warm forehead. She was quite warm, even warmer than Bella was...had been. In fact, she seemed closer in body temperature to the temperature the wolves usually ran.

Ugh. I really didn't want to think about that.

Although it wasn't strictly necessary, Renesmee pressed a warm palm to my cheek, showing me that Alice had fed her another bottle but that Rosalie had then taken over holding her until Esme and Carlisle appeared. She wasn't exactly sure yet how all the faces she'd seen related to her and to each other yet, other than that she seemed to understand Bella was her Mommy and I was her Daddy, and the others were somehow connected to us—which was good enough for her at the moment. The other face she knew—that of Jacob Black—seemed separate to her somehow, but she had accepted his presence. She showed me that he had left the house just as Esme was bringing her upstairs.

"Where did Jacob go?" I asked, glancing up at Esme.

Esme stroked Renesmee's soft cheek with the back of her index finger. "To check in with his pack. We heard you and Carlisle discussing it, and he seemed to realize it was something he'd better do."

I nodded. Well, that was good at least. If Leah Clearwater even dreamed about coming back here to find him, I wasn't sure what I would do with her—never mind what Rosalie might do.

Rosalie was behind my left shoulder, gazing down at Renesmee and shifting her weight from foot to foot, forcing herself not to snatch my daughter out of my arms. Somehow I found that amusing, and I empathized with her need to have the small, warm body clutched against her. She well knew that the baby wasn't hers to keep, and was genuinely trying not to encroach on parental boundaries.

Emmett reached around her and clapped a big hand down on my shoulder. "Congrats, man. She's a beauty."

"Thanks, Uncle Emmett," I murmured. Renesmee had turned her eyes up to his when he spoke. She liked his face very much.

"How's my newest sister? She sure looks good." He peered at Bella, still motionless on the small bed.

"Alice helped me clean up. It was...a bit gruesome in here before." I pushed the memory of the gory, bloody scene out of my mind. No need to go there at the moment.

"Looks like Alice chose Bella's attire, too. I can't imagine you putting her in something like that, at least not right now." Esme took in the silky, form-fitting cocktail dress that hugged each of Bella's soft curves. It was rather incongruous for the situation, and reminded me of one of those old vampire movies where the leading lady reclined on some kind of couch dressed to the nines, waiting to be taken by the evil cinematic vampire. Talk about ironic.

"She appears to be doing very well, in my opinion," Carlisle said, answering Emmett's original question for me. "It's unusual that she's so still and quiet, but I think that's the morphine."

Emmett sniffed the air. "Is that what that smell is? The morphine in her?"

"Yes."

"So we're having a family gathering and no one invited us?" Alice's voice rang from the doorway as she glided into the room, Jasper just behind her.

I glanced around from face to face. Carlisle...Esme...Rosalie...Emmett...Jasper...Alice...Bella...Renesmee. The entire Cullen family, all together in one room for the first time. Carlisle had one of Bella's wrists in his hand, measuring her pulse as he spoke quietly to Esme. Emmett had an arm slung around Rosalie's shoulders, and was asking Jasper for his views on whether a half-human girl would be any good at vampire baseball. Alice had called dibs on the next feeding, and Rosalie was protesting, pointing out that Alice had had the last feeding, and it was definitely her turn. Renesmee silently cast her observant eyes over the gathering, understanding somehow that all of these people were hers.

She quite liked the idea.

So did I.

I kissed her forehead again and looked up at my Bella's beautiful sleeping face. Get through this and wake up, my only love, I willed her silently. Join us. I can't wait for you to join us.

*~*~*~*

The hours passed slowly, agonizingly slowly as I waited...and waited. My various family members filtered in and out of the room at different times, offering to take over the watch so I could stretch my legs, or hunt, or do anything else to have a little break from my vigil. I thanked them and refused, my attention diverted only when Renesmee was brought to me for a visit. To my surprise, Rosalie had even yielded a turn with the bottle to bring both baby and warmed blood to me to provide, thoughtfully realizing that this was something I needed to do. I had the most comfort in the moments when Renesmee was in my arms and we gazed at each other quietly, while she either absorbed what she saw in the room around her, or silently told me about her day.

Otherwise, I simply waited. And hoped that Bella wasn't suffering too much.

Whenever Carlisle appeared, he would perform a quick examination and was always satisfied with what he saw. He found no reason to think everything wasn't proceeding with Bella as it should, but her persistent stillness unnerved me. I knew she was alive—her strong heartbeat was abundant evidence of that—but the fact that she never moved...I couldn't help fearing the worst. The fear tore at my heart, no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid for no reason.

I was sitting in my usual chair, holding Bella's hand and fretting when Carlisle drifted into the room for another check-up. He took her other hand and carefully pressed his fingers to her wrist to measure her pulse yet again.

"Still no change?" I asked him, hoping he could tell me something, anything that would indicate some kind of progress.

"None." He shook his head.

"There's no scent of the morphine left," I told him, although it would be obvious to him, too.

"I know."

Off and on as I sat with her, I murmured quietly to Bella, telling her little things about what was going on as she lay there, telling her about our daughter, telling her how much I loved her. Carlisle's presence provoked me to speak to her again, hoping somehow that with him in the room, her silence might break and she might find the ability to answer me. "Bella? Can you hear me?" I asked, a tad desperately. "Bella? Bella, love? Can you open your eyes? Can you squeeze my hand?" I squeezed her fingers gently but got no reaction.

I sighed and sat back in my chair. Looking up at Carlisle's calm visage, I couldn't help voicing my fear. "Maybe...Carlisle, maybe I was too late."

He shook his head. "Listen to her heart, Edward. It's stronger than even Emmett's was. I've never heard anything so vital. She'll be perfect."

I wasn't sure I was convinced. Maybe something about one of her specific injuries during the birth had been the difference. Her spine had been broken by one of Renesmee's last kicks. Had that actually paralyzed her? Is that why she wasn't moving? "And her—her spine?" I asked, wondering at the fact that I hadn't voiced the question before now.

Again, he shook his head. "Her injuries weren't so much worse than Esme's. The venom will heal her as it did Esme."

For some reason, Carlisle's presence was raising more questions in my mind rather than alleviating my concern. "But she's so still. I must have done something wrong."

"Or something right, Edward. Son, you did everything I could have and more." He put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me. "I'm not sure I would have had the persistence, the faith it took to save her. Stop berating yourself. Bella is going to be fine."

It troubled me that we could no longer smell the morphine, yet she remained motionless. "She must be in agony," I whispered.

"We don't know that. She had so much morphine in her system. We don't know the effect that will have on her experience."

I understood rationally that that was the case, but it was so hard to internalize it, sitting here hour after hour with no change. I squeezed her hand for the thousandth time and pressed my lips to the part of her which rested closest to me, the inside of her elbow. "Bella, I love you. Bella, I'm sorry," I murmured, also for the thousandth time.

Both Carlisle and I heard the front door open downstairs. Alice was letting Jacob Black back inside the house. He'd been gone for quite some time now. I wonder if he has news? Carlisle thought. We heard Rosalie sputter a few curses at Jacob when he asked about Renesmee. They hadn't attacked each other again yet, but I wondered if now would be the time. Carlisle wondered the same thing, and whether I should go broker a peace between them.

"No, I'm staying right here," I answered him quietly. "They'll sort it out."

"An interesting situation," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "And I'd thought I'd seen just about everything."

"I'll deal with it later. We'll deal with it," I muttered, squeezing Bella's hand yet again. He was her friend, and it was our daughter. I wasn't about to do anything about any of it without her input.

"I'm sure, between the five of us, we can keep it from turning into bloodshed," Carlisle nodded his head toward the door. Although Jacob seemed to be keeping his cool, Rosalie's voice had risen an octave as she threatened him to stay away from Renesmee.

I sighed. "I don't know which side to take. I'd love to flog them both. Well, later."

"I wonder what Bella will think—whose side she'll take," Carlisle mused.

I chuckled humourlessly. "I'm sure she'll surprise me. She always does." It seemed logical to me that she would be rather upset about the...situation with her would-be suitor and her infant daughter, but I had certainly been wrong about the kinds of things that would upset her in the past.

I'll go see what Jacob can tell us about the wolves, Carlisle thought, giving my shoulder a last comforting pat. It may distract Rosalie from ripping his throat out...at least for the moment.

I nodded, and he quietly left the room.

I didn't move from my post at Bella's side, but could hear Carlisle greet Jacob and Jacob's reply. While Jacob's voice was cautious, reflecting the sheepishness he felt about the odd situation he now found himself in, he was glad to see Carlisle. He had always liked Carlisle better than any of the rest of us.

"Jacob, have you seen the pack? Both packs, I suppose? Is there any news?" Carlisle asked him.

"That's where I've been all this time," Jacob told him. "First I went to see Seth and Leah...then the three of us went to find Sam. It was a bit nerve-wracking to face Sam and the rest when we're outnumbered, but Seth and Leah agreed we had to do it."

"You should have told us, Jacob. Some of us could have gone with you to ensure your safety," Carlisle said.

"Thanks, but that would have made it worse," Jacob replied, picturing in his mind Sam's reaction if he had shown up not only with his rogue pack but also with a few hated vampires in tow. "Anyway, I...uh...told them what happened...that Renesmee was born, that Edward had...uh...changed Bella," he hesitated on the word, thinking 'bit' or 'killed' more accurately reflected what I had done, but he didn't want to offend Carlisle. "And I told them about what happened with me...with Renesmee." He said the last part quietly, feeling especially awkward.

"And?" Alice prompted, not as patient as Carlisle was in waiting for Jacob to find the words he wanted to say.

"They weren't very happy about it all at first," Jacob sighed. "But Sam knows as well as any of us that the imprinting thing can't be controlled, and isn't always ideal." He thought of Sam having no choice but to leave Leah for Emily, as much as he had hated to hurt Leah that way. Sam would be the last one to suggest Jacob should have somehow prevented it.

"So what does that mean? Are they still planning to attack us?" Jasper demanded, already thinking ahead to defence strategy.

"I told them that Renesmee's just a baby, like a real baby. No threat to anyone." I couldn't help cringing a little when I caught his thoughts, looking over at Renesmee in Rosalie's arms. He adored her, no doubt about it...but it still made me uncomfortable, to say the least. "They'll have to see it for themselves to really believe it, but Sam was prepared to take my word for it for now. They'll be on high alert around the rez to protect everyone there, but they aren't going to try and do anything aggressive."

Carlisle breathed a sigh of relief. Jasper was sceptical. Emmett was a touch disappointed.

Rosalie was the one to snort out loud. "Are we supposed to just take this dog's word for it, Carlisle?"

"Edward will know his thoughts, Rosalie. He'll tell us if Jacob isn't telling the truth. So I'm sure that he is."

"Is Edward upstairs with Bella still? How is she?" he asked. It was interesting to observe the change in the way he thought about Bella already. He still loved her...but now it was more in the nature of how one might love a friend. Or family. I might have been glad for it if it weren't for the reason behind the switch.

"She seems to be doing well. She's very quiet, but there's no reason to think everything isn't progressing as it should."

Jacob hesitated for a moment. I knew where his thoughts were headed and couldn't help feeling automatically insulted—until I had to admit that he was right. "Uh...I doubt I'm telling you guys anything you haven't already thought about..." he began, directing his words to Carlisle. "But when Bella wakes up...is she going to be...okay around Renesmee? I mean, from what you guys say about newborn vampires...and Renesmee is half human...with half-human blood..."

"You're worried Bella won't be able to control herself and might attack Renesmee?" Carlisle asked.

The idea was abhorrent. But practical. We couldn't know how Bella would be when she first woke up as a vampire.

"Well, it's possible, right?" Jacob asked, although he felt guilty about questioning what Bella would do when she had gone through so much to bring Renesmee into the world.

"There's no doubt we'll have to be very careful. But we won't let Bella hurt the baby."

"Of course we won't," Rosalie snapped. "If she wakes up looking for blood, we'll give her you. The taste will probably put her off anything resembling human blood forever."

Rosalie's voice dripped with sarcasm, but Jacob took that in thoughtfully. "That's not a bad idea, Blondie. We could start with me...like a test. See how she does, if she tries to go after me. Before anyone lets her near Renesmee."

Esme's soft voice chimed in. "You'd sacrifice yourself like that, Jacob? Maybe you don't realize how strong she'll be when she first wakes up."

"Better me than Renesmee," he stated flatly. Certainly none of us could argue with that logic.

Carlisle hesitated. "Maybe there's another way. I'd rather not risk anyone."

"Thanks, but I'm pretty sure I can protect myself," Jacob said. I could see him shrug in Carlisle's mind's eye. "I'm not afraid of Bella. Even vampire Bella."

Again Rosalie snorted. "We'll see about that. I can't even imagine how scary she'll be when she finds out about this imprinting business."

"I'm sure Bella will understand," Carlisle murmured, but added silently: eventually.

"That settles it, then," Jacob said. "When Bella wakes up, I'll talk to her before she gets near Renesmee. To make sure she has control first."

"We'll see," Carlisle was non-committal, still hoping a safer way could be found. An alternative certainly wasn't obvious to me at the moment. And even though I knew it shouldn't, the thought of Bella tearing into Jacob had a perverse appeal. I might even call it payback for those hours in the tent earlier this year.

Satisfied for the time being, Jacob turned his attention to Renesmee, in Rosalie's arms. Renesmee was looking back at him with interest. "Hi, Nessie," he said quietly, his smile obvious in his voice.

"Nessie?" Rosalie spat, at the same time as my eyebrows raised. "What?"

Alice's tinkling bell laugh rang out in a giggle. "Nessie, short for Renesmee? I like that."

"It just seems to me that Renesmee is a lot of name for such a little girl," Jacob explained. "Just like Isabella is a lot of name for...well, Bella."

"Can't argue with you there," Emmett said, although I knew he cringed at the dirty look Rosalie shot in his direction.

I merely sighed. Bella was certainly going to have a lot to take in when she woke up.

*~*~*~*

More time passed. I had spent the last little while murmuring softly to Bella, telling her random stories about Alice, Jasper, Rose, Emmett and I at college in San Francisco in the 1960s. She had probably heard these before, but it made me feel better to talk to her as though everything were somehow normal. As though she really were just asleep, and not roasting in the fires of hell. Because of me.

Alice floated into the room quietly and crept up to my side. She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, rubbing lightly.

"How much longer?" I asked her. Since Renesmee had been delivered, Alice had gradually regained the ability to see Bella's future.

"It won't be long now," she said, pausing to let me see it for myself in her thoughts: Bella slowly awakening, sitting up on the small bed, looking around the room. She hadn't been able to put a precise timeline on it yet, but had a general idea. "See how clear she's becoming? I can see her so much better." Alice seemed to be gauging Bella's progress in part based on how clear Bella became in her vision—which in turn reflected how much closer Bella was to becoming a vampire.

I smiled a little at Alice's sigh. The weeks she had been unable to see Bella's future still weighed heavily on her. "Still feeling a little bitter?"

"Yes, thanks so much for bringing it up," she grumbled. "You would be mortified, too, if you realized that you were handcuffed by your own nature." No, Alice, I've never had any experience with that, I thought a tad sarcastically, but held my tongue. She continued, "I see vampires best, because I am one; I see humans okay, because I was one. But I can't see these odd half-breeds at all because they're nothing I've experienced. Bah!" She was still annoyed that she could see nothing with respect to the werewolves, despite how much time she'd spent with Jacob Black lately.

"Focus, Alice."

"Right. Bella's almost too easy to see now."

I watched her vision with her in her mind's eye again: Bella awakening, sitting up, looking around the room, eyes wide in wonder and surprise at how acute her senses were. I remembered well my own awakening, despite how long ago it had taken place. It was a strange and completely overwhelming experience. I wished there was some way I could spare Bella from it, some way I could get her through it quickly. But at least the vision meant that she was going to make it.

She was really going to make it.

The waiting was torture, but, I allowed myself to think with uncharacteristic optimism, the outcome was going to be well worth it. My forever was just around the corner. I sighed with contentment at the idea of my new little nuclear family, all together. "She's really going to be fine," I heard myself breathe.

"Of course she is," Alice smiled.

"You weren't so sanguine two days ago."

"I couldn't see right two days ago. But now that she's free of all the blind spots, it's a piece of cake."

"Could you concentrate for me? On the clock—give me an estimate."

Alice let out a sigh of her own, but it was teasing. "So impatient. Fine. Give me a sec—"

I watched her mind's eye as she focused on Bella, on the waking, the sitting up...She tried to find a clock in the room in her vision but couldn't, so instead she focused on the study windows—trying to narrow it down by getting an idea of how high the sun was in the sky.

It was a morning sun. That meant only a few more hours to go.

I felt my face break into a wide smile. It felt foreign there, but wonderful. "Thank you, Alice," I murmured quietly, hearing the relief in my tone.

Alice continued to focus on the vision in her mind, Bella's long chestnut hair glistening in the light from the window, porcelain skin flawless, full lips a perfect pink. "She's going to be dazzling."

I let out a low growl. "She always has been."

Alice snorted and gestured at Bella, motionless on the small bed. "You know what I mean. Look at her."

She was right. My Bella, always so beautiful to me, was becoming an enhanced version of herself. The change took her already perfect features and somehow perfected them even more, as though she were a photograph which had been subtly airbrushed. I had only an imprecise memory of what I had looked like before my own change, but I knew the same thing had happened to me. I'd seen it happen to Esme, Rosalie and Emmett, too. It was part of turning us into ideal predators of humans.

Alice gave my shoulder a last squeeze and floated out of the room. I'll go see how Renesmee's doing, she thought as she left me to my solitary vigil, already planning out what she was going to say to Rosalie in order to get a turn holding my little daughter. Renesmee had already noticeably grown; it was another reason I was so glad Bella's transformation was almost complete. She'd missed too much already.

I reached for Bella's hand and settled myself to wait the last few long hours.

*~*~*~*

I've heard it said that time is all relative, and the truth of that statement had never been more clear to me than it was while I sat through the eternity of that breaking dawn gradually piercing the night sky. I willed the sun to hurry up and vault itself higher over the horizon, instead of rising only inch by painful inch. I'd given up talking to Bella; my anxiousness robbing me of the focus to find the words. Although I knew my family was there, waiting as I was, the house was very quiet. Renesmee was still asleep. The only sound was Bella's needless but reflexive breathing and the steady thumping of her heart.

Suddenly, that thumping changed. The regular, predictable rhythm sped up and became a pounding—faster and faster. I sat bolt upright in my chair.

It was almost over.

"Carlisle," I called quietly, and both he and Alice appeared within a handful of seconds. "Listen," I said, not turning my gaze from Bella's.

"Ah," Carlisle smiled, once again clapping a hand on my shoulder. "It's almost over," he announced, echoing my earlier thought.

"Soon," Alice agreed eagerly. "I'll get the others." The whole family wanted to be there when Bella awoke, to greet her and help her adjust to the overwhelming sensory overload we all knew she was about to experience.

Alice hesitated a moment. Someone was going to have to miss it to stay with Renesmee. "Should I have Rosalie...?"

"Yes—keep the baby away," I nodded. I hated to have to do it, but I knew Bella would be destroyed if she unwillingly did anything to harm Renesmee in the fog of adjusting to her transformation.

My heart leapt—Bella's fingers had just moved! After so many hours of complete stillness, the fingers on her left hand twitched slightly. I had never been so filled with joy at the sight of something so simple. I couldn't help clutching them in my own and squeezing. "Bella? Bella, love?" I asked breathlessly, now on the literal edge of my seat.

"I'll bring them right up," Alice murmured, and flitted out of the room to gather everyone else.

The pounding that was Bella's heart continued to accelerate, becoming a staccato so rapid and furious that the individual beats were difficult to discern. I rose to my feet when her back suddenly arched up from the bed and then slumped back down almost as suddenly. Carlisle's hand on my shoulder was restraining now, urging me to keep some distance and give her some room. I knew he was right but found it nearly impossible to do. Part of me was painfully excited at the prospect of her awakening, finally, finally like me and mine forever, but the other part was simply pained by the knowledge that I was listening to the very last of her human heartbeats. I was watching her humanity evaporate, filled with dread and selfish anticipation in equal measures.

Her choice, her choice, I reminded myself, but couldn't prevent the stinging in my eyes where human tears would be, tears of simultaneous joy and mourning. A deep, hollow-sounding thud rang loudly in my ears, drowning out the quiet sounds of the rest of my family filtering into the room. Two stuttering beats followed, themselves followed by one last thud, this one quiet in its finality.

Isabella Swan was dead.

Bella Cullen slowly opened her eyes.