Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, I'm just borrowing the characters and taking them on a magical journey.

AN: I'm so sorry it's taken so long for me to update! Between figuring out some issues I've been having physically and preparing to move across the country, I don't have much time to sit down and write, much less plan out three very different stories ._. Updates to "Destroy This" and "Rebirth" should be coming out in the next week as well, since I have to take a trip to where I'm moving soon and won't have a computer there.

So here's the next chapter, I hope you're still with me, and I'm really surprised by how much response this fic has gotten since it's a significantly less popular pairing :) Thank you everyone so far who has reviewed, followed, and favorited! This one's a bit longer, so here we gooo~

Chapter 2: Rosalie's POV

Her eyes bore into mine, pushing against my frozen exterior, the innocent concern of a "mother" trying to melt my defenses. Even though I knew it would be her waiting for me to return, as it had been many times before, I couldn't quite quash the surprise that always welled up inside of me when her eyes met mine.

"Rose," she replied, the nickname nearly wafting from her lips to my ears it was spoken so gently. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and bask in it—I knew better than to react like that in front of her. I thought to myself, how fucked in the head do you have to be, Rosalie Hale, to feel your body surge at a mother's concern? God, why does this always happen?

"I'm here, Esme," I replied, trying to step around her to the window. Her hand caught my forearm as I walked by, barely there yet enough to stop me. I looked down at her, maintaining my hard exterior. Our eyes met again, and she slid her hand up to grip me around my elbow.

"You hardly ever are anymore," she countered. "And when you are, you spend all of your time in your room...I'm worried about you, Rose." I bit back the urge to scoff at her words. I wondered if her concern would change if she knew why I avoided her like the plague most days.

"I'm fine," I lied, my voice short with the strain of maintaining my icy exterior. I gazed out the window, trying to find anything to focus on other than her skin and her eyes.

"Avoiding your mother who waits to see you every day you're out late can hardly be considered fine, Rose," she implored, an undertone of hurt running behind her words. She continued, her voice barely a whisper. "Do you really hate being a part of this family this much? Do you really hate me this much?"

I gasped at the pain that seized my heart at her words, my eyes locking back onto hers. "Esme, I-" I hesitated, the voice of the beast in the back of my head screaming Tell her! Tell her how she's Ours, how you're Hers! How could you do this to her! But I couldn't. This family was torn up enough already, what with Edward's human pushing Jasper far beyond his limits, my relationship with Emmett filled with tension at every turn...she didn't need this kind of bomb dropped on her, not now. Possibly not ever.

"I just wish you'd tell me what's going on; you've been shut off from me for so long. What happened to the talks we used to have? I love you, Rose."

I couldn't stop the grimace of pain from passing over my features at the cruel irony of those words—the words I'd kill to hear spill from her lips in anything other than a mother's love, making the beast inside of me both roar and scream with a twisted combination of momentary joy followed by agony as it understood how she meant it. My chest vibrated with the quietest of growls as confusion passed over Esme's face.

When I was first turned, I couldn't stand to be around Edward or Carlisle. It was impossible for me to trust men after what had happened. But Esme was there for me, as soft as always, guiding me and helping me learn what was good in the world. I could talk to her about anything, elated to spend any moment alone with her I could get.

As my newborn bloodlust faded, however, I became aware of another of my beast's desires—the desire to mate. I was alarmed to discover that urge was directed at Esme and Esme alone. Even moreso when I asked her about mating and she said Carlisle was hers. I didn't understand, and in my distraught state, I refused to live with them.

I lived apart from yet near to them for a few years, until I found Emmett. I believed that he could heal me, that my desire to save him must have meant he was my mate, not Esme, and that I had confused my feelings of gratitude and adoration with those of love and lust in my newborn haze.

Emmett and I lived in our honeymoon phase for a long while—nearly a decade. I thought I was cured of my despair. I thought I had finally moved on from my newborn "crush." I was happy, finally.

The happiness didn't last, however. As the first decade of my marriage to Emmett came to a close, Carlisle was called to the Volturi. Aro demanded his expertise on something, and from the phone calls we received while he was away we discovered that Aro had forced him to abide by their dietary rules while he was there—he was a former member of their force, and was to be treated as such. The despair on Esme's face at the news, at how Carlisle was starving himself to avoid harming any innocents, tore through my heart. It created a fissure that burned and left me breathless every time I saw her grieving.

It was then that the beast reared its ugly head once again—Go to your mate. Comfort her. You cannot let her suffer!

I told myself the beast was confused. That the fierce protectiveness brewing in my gut was because she was our mother. That her unconditional love could only be returned with unconditional love, and that the beast mistook this for the mating instinct. But from then on, the beast would not quiet, and my eyes would drift over her body without my permission.

Mate, the beast taunted. Take what is ours, it would demand of me. It would not listen to reason. It cared not that I knew she was Carlisle's. That she was our mother. That she was a woman, and I had never loved a woman as my instincts demanded I love her.

Eventually I acquiesced, the beast growing louder the longer I ignored it. I tried to bury my frustration and desire in Emmett, something he appreciated and never questioned. I felt sick to my stomach for years, knowing I was using him, but he was happy to simply be alive again—a sentiment I was growing to disagree with strongly. What good was a second chance if you still didn't have it with who you were made for? The weight of that question sank into my gut and resided there ever since. Everything became routine.

"Rosalie?"

Esme's quiet voice pulled me out of my memories, the weight of my feelings for her as heavy as they were when I first resigned to them. I sighed quietly.

"Where did you just go, honey?" She asked quietly, her thumb running over my arm as if to keep me in the present.

"Nowhere," I answered automatically, internally cringing at the hoarseness of my voice. I cleared my throat and spoke again, more confidently. "Nowhere, Esme. I was right here."

"Look at me, Rose," she demanded. I steeled my emotions and met her gaze. "Something's going on. I can see it. It reminds me of when you left us all those years ago..."

It's exactly like then, I thought. Can't you see, Esme? I can't stand it here. I can't stand watching you with him. I wondered if the plea showed in my eyes.

"I don't know how to help you," she continued after evaluating the look in my eyes closely. "I want to, god do I want to, but how can I if you won't talk to me?" Her voice nearly broke on those words, and I felt like I was going to suffocate even though I didn't need to breathe. I could feel my love for her swelling in my chest and constricting my throat. I opened my mouth to speak, but my thoughts caught in my throat as if it were filled with water and I was going under. Her hand slid up my arm to cup my face gently as she stood, not even a foot away.

"Come back to me, Rose," she whispered. "I couldn't bear to lose you again." Her breath met my lips in a blanket of vanilla and honey. My heart seized in my chest as if it were trying to beat, painfully.

"I can't, Esme," I whispered, begging her to understand. Begging her to leave it at that.

"You can tell me anything. I'm right here for you, Rose, just as I've always been."

"This...this I just cannot tell you, Esme. Please," I tried again. She shook her head, her other hand coming to grasp my shoulder.

"No, Rosalie. I need you to tell me. I need to know why you're treating me like this...we were always the closest. And now you can barely stand to look at me."

I staved off a whimper at the painful squeezing in my chest. She's right, the beast whispered. She deserves to know. You've treated her so poorly, our mate…

"I don't know how," I whispered aloud, both to her and to the ever-insistent voice in the back of my head.

"Start at the beginning," she whispered in return. The beginning? God, no. She couldn't know how long this had been going on. I grasped at my thoughts, desperately searching for anything that would be close enough to satisfy her.

"Emmett and I..." I began uneasily, "...we aren't mates."

It hadn't come out exactly as I'd wanted it to, far too open ended and close to the truth for my own liking. Was this what nausea felt like? What the human girl said she felt when she thought about blood?

"Oh, Rosalie...what could ever make you say that?"

Because I'm in love with you! I all but screamed in my head. "I..."

"Is it someone else? Did you meet someone at school?" She asked, not waiting for my reply.

"No!" I answered immediately, regretting how fast I'd blurted it out. "I mean, no...no, there is no human who could ever make me feel what I feel for Emmett," I continued, trying to put on that veil of indifference I wore so often. It didn't work, however, as Esme's eyes bored into mine.

"Who is it?" Just like a mother, seeing right through me and skipping over the details to the question she wanted the answer to…

"There's nobody, Esme, alright?" Please believe me, please…

"Is it one of Bella's friends? What was his name? Mike?"

"Esme, listen to me, I don't like a stupid human!"

"Be nice, Rosalie, I'm sure he's not that bad..." God, she was so off the mark!

"There is. No. Boy!" I was growing flustered, and I couldn't tell if I wanted to scream the truth in her face because the idea of liking one of those human boys disgusted me or if I just wanted to run away.

Realization dawned over her face and I felt my stomach drop to my feet.

"It's Angela, isn't it?"

A downright embarrassing guffaw burst forth from my lips in a mixture of relief and confusion. Where in the world had she gotten that idea?

"No? Jessica? Oh, who was that other girl..."

"No, Esme, no, no, no! I don't like any humans! God, why would I? You know how I feel about them, come on," I blurted out in my strange state of confusion and panic.

The look on her face was indescribable. Way to go, Rosalie, you broke her, I thought to myself coldly. God, I was such an idiot. I might as well have told her I had fallen for god damn Edward with the way she was looking at me.

"Alice?" She asked, disbelief written all over her features. I felt the suffocating feeling rising up again. Too close, much too close to the truth. "No, that can't be right," she murmured, my panic rising to an all-time high, leaving me unable to formulate a complete thought, much less lead her off the trail. Oh god, what am I going to do? I thought to myself desperately. She's going to figure it out, she's going to know…

Suddenly a thought came to me, one that made my stomach lurch in disgust but that I was prepared to utter in the event that it would save me from the truth. I opened my mouth to tell her quickly, when she gasped.

"Oh my god," she blurted, her hand darting from my chin to her lips. I nearly choked as the shock and hesitance grew on her features by the second.

"No, Esme, wait! I-"

"You love me," she whispered. "You're in love with me..."

Oh, fuck.

Fuck.

AN 2: Cliffie! Make sure you leave a review and let me know what you think~