The hybrid evidence of Bella and Edward's union lies curled up with a bowl of human food: popcorn, plain. Salt only makes her crave blood, and that would defeat the purpose entirely. She watches as Rosalie brushes her long blonde hair. She is so envious of the way it shimmers in the light, the thickness and fullness of it.

"Oh, Rose," she says. "You're so lucky. My hair doesn't cooperate as well as yours does. Yours is womanly. I have little girl curls. You're so gorgeous."

Rosalie turns, set her silver brush down on the vanity stand and outstretches her graceful palm. "Come here, Nessie."

Ness allows herself to be pulled easily into her aunt's lap, placing the bowl on her chair as she does so. She tilts her head back and forth, observing her reflection. Rose's heart-stopping face hovers above her head.

"You're the lucky one, Renesmee. Your cheeks are filled with blood. Pulsing, racing blood. It gives you your pretty blush. And it signifies that you are very human. Your heartbeat," Rose continues, hugging her niece close, "makes you far more beautiful than me." Nessie giggles as Rose tightens her grip, tickling her stomach.

"Never forget that who you are is what will draw others to you. It's not all about looks. But trust me- when you grow older, the boys will be hunting you relentlessly. Or is it Jacob you're worried about impressing?"

Renesmee grows still. She suddenly despises the mirror.

"What's wrong?"

Nessie inhales, breathes out through her small button-like nose, and rotates away from the unforgiving glass. "Jacob is…different. He's not my Jacob any longer. But I understand. He can't help it. And I love him. So I have to let him be."

Rosalie, taken aback, releases Renesmee and looks at her with a serious expression on her magnificent marble countenance. "What do you mean, Ness? What can't he help?"

Renesmee moves as if to exit the blonde vampire's bedroom. Then, slowly, she shifts to stare directly into Rose's bemused buttery eyes, careful to avoid her own reflection.

"'I know my Jacob'" she quotes. "They don't know I heard. But I think I understand now. I ruined Jacob's life."

With a small smile she departs, her footsteps inaudible, her smooth white face a perfect mask of martyrdom.

---

He awakes in a bed smelling simultaneously of friend and foe.

It rushes back to him quickly.

Her screams, pleas, once ignored and unanswered, provoke a flood of furious tears. She had lain there, almost bare and abused. She was Bella then. But he was not himself.

Throwing the sheets off, Jake leaps from the window. He lands with a 'thud' and runs, scraping dirt as his feet and hands become paws with knife-like claws.

He slowly gains substance, surrendering a ghostly in-between figure, losing the space where a soul should be, his heart overflowing with feeling, straining his chest. He possesses a sterner form, a brain crammed with hate, a pumping, emotionless organ that does not give him such agony.

He roars in pain.

The pack mind stretches out effortlessly to include him. They witness his ghastly transformation.

This would mean turmoil. This would incite feuds.

If the other vampires did not know by now they soon would. And then they would attack. The tough one, Emmett, and the smart one, Jasper. Quick-tempered Rosalie and tender Alice. The soft-spoken Esme, and her kind Doctor.

Edward, positively reeking of goodness and reason.

He can not hope to defeat them. Nor does he want to. They are almost like…like family.

"My son," Edward had called him. And in that sweet, mellifluous moment where space and time did not have meaning, he could clearly acknowledge that he was bonded with Edward, too.

But no, they do not have names. They are creatures and he is a monster, and monsters always win.

"Jake, Jake, Jake," his brothers chant.

But he does not answer to common human names any longer. He is uncaring, and he is fierce. He is raw, evil…and forsaken.

---

As he slept soundly, she watched him. His normally narrowed black brows were at ease, lashes lowered over closed inky eyes. His earthy, red skin was free of tension. The Volturi's arrival loomed closer with each passing day, and it was a rare moment when her beloved could simply rest.

"Beloved." She whispered the word, wrapping her heart-shaped lips around it, trying it out. Already, she could feel the word's meaning echoing true.

He was so dear to her. He was hers, and she was his. Her father did not like it. But she knew that if she closed her eyes and chose the one who made her heart sing it would be Jake.

Edward- tall, golden, and wonderful. He was her protector.

Once, she had managed to get her hands on a forgotten copy of the Bible in Carlisle's room. She had immersed herself in it while her family prepared for the upcoming confrontation with their many new allies.

She was intrigued with the entity called 'God'. In her mind, Edward was her God, her Heavenly Father. He was everything good and pure in the world.

She knew her mother felt the same. The worshipping manner she exhibited around him was constant.

Bella- loving, intuitive, and excellent. She was Renesmee's earliest memory, and the sound of her chiming voice never ceased to thrill her.

Nessie found comparisons with her life and the ageless works of literature she often read. Her mother was so important and vital. She tried to think of a character that was remotely parallel to her.

Bella was nothing like Shakespeare's Juliet. Juliet was silly and foolish. She was not like Cathy, cruel and selfish. Bella was nearly incomparable.

The closest Nessie could come to a similar character was Melanie, of Gone with the Wind. That novel intrigued Ness; the gallantry of the soldiers reminded her of her relatives.

Melly was kind, and loved her child fiercely. She was brave. Bella would have killed that Yankee, too.

"Whatever a Yankee is," she muttered aloud, cutting into her mental musing.

Jake stirred, lifted his face to the ceiling and sighed in his slumber.

"Renesmee," he murmured.

Jacob- constant, all-consuming, outrageous. He was her soul mate, before she knew what a soul mate was. He understood her. He completed her, before she needed completion. His blinding smile sent meteors of joy across her sky. He was the star by which she traveled. He was her prince. And she was his princess.

Forever…

If they had that long.

---

The Volturi's threat had passed.

But their forever, however, is tainted now, poisoned by time. They may live for many years, but unhappiness is inevitable, progressing more with each passing, altering hour.

Renesmee, sitting on the wide mansion porch, pauses in her reflections of the past and listens to the wolf howl in the deep, dark forest.