Sorry, all. I've been very happy lately, so it's hard to channel that into anything angsty. I had to put on some mood music and watch New Moon just to feel something.

Symphony No.3- III. Poco allegretto- Johannes Brahms

WWV90, Act III: "Hinternreigen"- Richard Wager

"I wish we could take her home," I mumbled.

Emmett rolled his eyes. "I like this!"

I huffed and sat back, making it clear that I wasn't involved in the direction of the conversation. In complete contrast, Emmett was leaning forward, enraptured, the couch buckling under his weight. I didn't know how we had gotten here. When I came downstairs, I was wringing my wet hair in a towel and Alice had been quietly practicing holding a book. Then, she remarked with her signature wide-eyed amazement how she didn't think she had ever seen me dressed as I was.

I looked down. The weather outside was warm, but that didn't really matter. I had borrowed a pair of cotton shorts and a plain camisole from Tanya. I rarely gave much thought to clothing, especially when I knew I wouldn't be around humans, and Tanya, Kate, and Irina didn't really have much else to borrow from anyways.

"We usually try to keep our skin hidden from humans," I explained, pointing out the stark white and obvious unnaturalness of our pallor. Then, one snickering comment from Tanya about how not everyone was so self-conscious, and we were listening to what was essentially a workshop class on how to seduce a man.

"We do prefer human men," Irina was explaining. "But there have been vampires, of course. Some of them are just too pretty to say no to."

"Oh, Carlisle," Kate sighed in playful wistfulness, and both Emmett's and Alice's eyes grew wide and their mouths opened simultaneously.

It was my turn to roll my eyes.

"You never slept with Carlisle," I said dismissively, glaring at Emmett before he could make a dirty joke.

"No, we didn't. We would never attempt to take someone we thought to be mated," Kate said salaciously, wiggling her brows at me.

Emmett seemed to connect the dots first. His head whipped over so he could look at me, his mouth wide open in an outrageous grin that left craterous dimples on his cheeks. "When did you all meet Carlisle?" he asked slowly, excitement building in his voice.

"Seventeen fifty-four," Irina said.

Emmett then looked at Alice with his signature impish grin. "Esme was changed in nineteen twenty-one," he told her. Her mind was quick, and she looked at me with wide eyes, her mouth slightly parted in awe.

"You and Carlisle!" Alice shouted. Emmett threw his head back, a laugh erupting from his chest and shaking his whole body, and thus the couch.

"I was not sleeping with Carlisle," I said flatly.

"Technically, we never sleep," Tanya threw in.

"You haven't seen him yet, Alice," Kate said, patting her thigh. "He's honest-to-god the most beautiful man you'll ever meet."

"So disappointing that he was always taken," Irina sighed, flicking back her platinum bob to tuck behind her ears.

"He wasn't taken!" I objected

"He sure acted like he was," Kate said appraisingly. The chatter seemed to stop, and four sets of golden eyes and one red all turned to focus on me.

"You did tell me you weren't a virgin," Alice whispered, her nose scrunching as she tried to recall what was for her a human memory, but what I remembered perfectly. Right after she had asked me if I had ever had sex, Edward had come downstairs in just a T-shirt, which was novel then, and I had gotten to rub lotion into the mildly sunburnt skin on his back. Even if my recall wasn't flawless, I would have been able to remember that perfectly.

Emmett gaped at me as if it was news and he had just received the most licentious and outrageous gossip.

"Do you remember how I died?" I reminded him, and his mouth closed as he realized that, since I wasn't a holy religious icon for over a billion people, the child I nearly died giving birth to was, in fact, conceived the natural way. "And Carlisle and I never had sex," I said, looking pointedly at Tanya. "No matter how pretty you find him, we have never been anything more than friends."

"I still don't know how you could keep your hands to yourself," Irina commented.

"Hey! I'm pretty too!" Emmett interjected in mock-offence.

"You've had Rose since you first opened your eyes," I pointed out.

"That's true," Emmett said, his golden eyes starry in a faraway look. "What an angel."

"I love that we get soulmates," Alice sighed dreamily, sporting almost the same pensive expression as Emmett.

"I don't know so much about souls," Tanya said. "And maybe it's not even universal."

Kate grimaced and looked down at her hands. "We've been around for hundreds of years, and none of us have ever met our mates."

"Yes, maybe you'll come live with us and be the fourth in our little harem," Irina said lasciviously, shifting the mood from Kate's solemnity immediately.

"Well, now, hold on," I cautioned, but Alice just giggled and clapped her hands together so loudly it sounded like a crack of thunder. I couldn't imagine anyone less suited to their lifestyle than Alice. Irina, Tanya, and Kate were all supermodel-tall with blonde hair and striking looks that led to the creation of the lore of the succubus. Even just sitting between Kate and Irina, she looked out of place- remarkably petite, with pixie-like features and her dark, cropped short hair. Everything about her was delicate in the extreme compared to everyone else in the room. She looked like she belonged more in some enchanted garden than in a seedy nightclub in Anchorage.

"I don't think it's for me," Alice confessed. "Not that it doesn't sound delightful."

"Pleasurable is more like it," Irina laughed.

"Ecstasy," Kate corrected.

"And you basically have your pick of whomever pleases you-"

"We so rarely get turned down."

"I can count on one hand how many times a man has said no to me."

"And over the course of several centuries, that's saying something."

"There was that one man a few hundred years ago…"

"A human, how remarkable. He did so love his wife."

"And Carlisle, of course. And that blond boy, Jasper, who came back with us after Seattle," Tanya sighed longingly, her lashes fluttering coquettishly. I rolled my eyes again. Not everyone was as promiscuous as them, but they acted as if we were the abnormal ones. I wondered if Jasper had been driven away by their advances, and hoped he was finding his own way, wherever he was. Him and his two friends, Peter and Charlotte, had been an immense help with the newborns in Seattle, and I knew he was going to have to go witness before Aro about the situation as well. Any association with me was putting him in danger.

"Oh, and that sulky nomad that was friendly with Carlisle, Alistair! I still can't believe he turned me down," Irina huffed, but I wasn't paying attention to her anymore. Alice jumped when Kate mentioned Seattle, and her expression went blank again.

"Alice, what is it?" I whispered, leaning towards her.

But she didn't respond. Her eyes had gone black in their glassiness, and a shadow crossed over her face. A hush fell over the room as the chattering stopped, and Emmett caught my eye with an uncharacteristic frown on his face.

Then she rocketed up and tore out of the house, ripping the front door from its hinges. Tanya and I were right behind her, and Kate was following. I fell out of step and let Kate overtake me, Irina circling around to survey the area for anything that we didn't want Alice near. Emmett was jogging behind casually, not in any particular hurry

Alice was hunting. In the decades that had passed, it had slipped my mind how high-maintenance they were, but Alice had been sitting around with us, inside, for a few hours. Besides the red eyes, she had seemed so normal. She had blended in. She had even naturally adapted the human characteristics of fidgeting- bouncing her feet, tapping her fingers against her leg, absentmindedly touching her hair.

In fact, the only times she went entirely, vampirically still, were when she did that freezing thing that she had done from the moment she changed. It was almost like she was buffering. I couldn't remember anyone else ever doing that before, but maybe I was overthinking. It wouldn't be the first time, and there was so much to look at and listen to, i understood that maybe her senses were overwhelmed.

I slowed to a jog and let everyone else follow after Alice. I could hear Kate circling around to give Alice a wide berth while still covering the territory in front of her.

Maybe we were still being overly cautious. Maybe she didn't really need to be surrounded at every moment by a watchful guard. But the world had grown smaller, and humans were inching closer into the unexplored wilds more and more every year. The untamed territories were sparse, and we couldn't take our space for granted anymore, not even in the remote little oasis Tanya, Kate, and Irina had found for themselves several hundred years ago in their flee from Europe.

The night was always dark in Denali, without the pollution of city lights for hundreds of miles. The stars sprinkled across the sky and the moon was pale and waning behind the gossamer shadow of a translucent cloud. In the distance, I could hear the final whimpering growl of a wolf struggling under Alice's hungry hands. Even further, I could hear the quiet giggles of Irina and Kate sharing a joke that was only understandable between the sisters.

Emmett ambled over to me, his curly hair windblown with how fast he raced after Alice. "I have no memory of ever hunting this much," he said in exasperation.

"You most certainly did," I laughed. "If anything, you were so much worse. Alice is at least capable of being inside. Esme wouldn't let you near a building with four walls for months."

"And I still destroyed a few houses," Emmett grinned proudly, dimples on full display.

I snorted. "That was for a different reason."

"I've got a feeling you and Edward will give us a run for our money!" he boomed, elbowing me playfully. A pair of doves huddled together in a nearby tree flew off in a flourished and hasty flight, startled away by Emmett.

Any semblance of a good mood I had manifested disappeared, and the pain in my chest was at the forefront of my mind again. I touched my collarbone absentmindedly, half expecting to feel some kind of cracking beneath my fingers. The smile on Emmett's face melted away, and he shook his head and sighed heavily.

"He's not mad at you," he said quietly.

Venom stung in my eyes and choked in the back of my throat simultaneously. "Is that why he wouldn't speak to me?"

"A misunderstanding."

"I'm not that blind," I mumbled. I had sat on the top of that mountain for hours waiting for a call that Esme had promised would come. Alice had gotten distracted with thirst after a short time and left me to watch the sun rise up over the park alone, phone silent and covered in frost.

"School starts on Monday," he announced abruptly.

I bit down on my bottom lip, thinking of how momentous it was supposed to be for Edward, for Alice. Charlie was sure to make a big deal about it, and Esme would be spending hours preparing elaborate lunches and after school snacks. And I would so welcome the comforting distraction of pedantic human gossip after the most complicated and convoluted supernatural chaos.

"I know," I said quietly.

Emmett frowned again, probably more often than he had done in the past decade. "So you're not going?"

"Why would I?" I asked, confused.

"Weren't you planning on it?"

"I was planning on a lot of things, before all of this," I said, sweeping my hand out in front of us. In the distance, there was a desperate final yowl of a mountain lion. I was almost sorry it was wasted on a newborn. They weren't easy to come by this far north.

"So be it," Emmett sighed, jumping up and brushing the loose soil from his jeans.

There was another growl in the direction Alice had run. "I'm going to go catch up with them," I said quietly, leaving Emmett standing there shaking his head.

I knew he was disappointed in me. For that matter, it seemed like everyone was disappointed in me, and rightfully so. No matter what I did, it was a mistake, and I had no idea what the right course of action was. For some reason, my family seemed to want me to go home, back to Forks and back to Edward. But I had a responsibility with Alice.

And I was putting off having to face Edward.

So long as I didn't see him, he wouldn't have a chance to actually-

The thought was too painful to imagine. Not even to try to mentally prepare myself, as if that could help.

There was a familiar-sounding yowl from the rocky bluffs above, and I found myself jumping across a small river and up the steep cliffside. Anything was better than standing around moping by myself. We were on the far side of the valley, far away from the house where the land was a little more arid and flat. This sort of reminded me of home. Teeming with green and flora, moss covered trees, a small waterfall roaring down into the shallow river below- it seemed familiar in the best ways.

"I can't believe she found a mountain lion," Tanya said. I stepped beside her, and Kate's golden eyes peered out at us from a few hundred feet above the waterfall.

"Not just one, but two," she called down in correction.

"Two?" I asked, bewildered.

"Haven't seen one in three years, and Alice finds two her first few weeks here," Tanya said with a begrudging grimace.

"Three years? Should she really be hunting them?"

"Probably not," Tanya shrugged. "But you try pointing that out to a thirsty, hunting newborn."

"I'm going to tell her," I announced.

"On your head," Tanya said, throwing up her hands in defeat.

"It's my responsibility to educate her on our ways."

"It's also your responsibility to not get your head torn off for interrupting a newborn mid-hunt."

"If she was hunting humans?" I countered.

"Everyone slips," Tanya said with a shrug.

"Not everyone," I said, chewing down on my bottom lip.

"Of course, Saint Bella," Tanya laughed, bending in a a playful bow.

"You haven't, either," I snorted.

"Maybe not in a while," she shrugged passively.

"Yeah, a few hundred years isn't anything to boast about, right?"

Tanya shrugged again, but I could see her sporting a small smile of pride. With her intimate proximity to humans, her control was even more impressive. Just above us, a few pebbles tumbled down the rocks, and there was another loud yowl and accompanying feral hiss.

"She found another," Kate called down in announcement. "I guess there was a den."

This was beyond unfair to our cousins. We always made a conscious effort to never hunt anything endangered, or any species in sparse supply in a certain region. It was our responsibility, as the most dangerous of predators, to not decimate nature. And it was my duty, as Alice's creator, to make sure she was educated about this. I was supposed to guide her as a newborn, to teach her our laws and ways of life. If we existed more naturally, as nomads or with the Volturi, I would be showing her how to hunt humans in major cities, how to stay inconspicuous. If I didn't, then I would be at risk as responsible for drawing too much attention to our existence. This was much the same, just far more moral, and without the looming threat of destruction.

I scaled the steep precipice easily, my fingers sinking into the soft rock. I jumped up onto the bluff and surveyed the scene.

There were two bodies, discarded and drained, and the pounding hearts of two more were nearby. Alice was grappling with one, her eyes wild and a feral grin on her small, bloody mouth. The cat was crying and roaring, slashing at her pointlessly with its wicked nails and swatting its giant paws. The cashmere sweater she had borrowed from Irina was slashed to ribbons and hanging around her shoulders. Her bare skin was pale but unscathed.

"Alice?" I approached quietly, making sure to keep my hands extended harmlessly and each step audible. She wasn't paying attention, though, her shoulders rolling back as her fingers ripped into the animal. The hot, gamey smell of blood saturated the air. I swallowed back the automatic flow of venom triggered by fresh blood.

"Alice?" I repeated.

The body was thrown from her hands as Alice jumped up and whipped around. Her red eyes were ablaze and completely lacking in conscious thought. A deep growl tore through her chest and out of a snarling mouth. Fresh blood on her teeth caught the pale moonlight.

I stepped back. "It's just me, Alice. It's Bella," I reminded her gently.

The other mountain lion seemed to see its opportunity for escape, and it clambered up the rocky mountainside, its giant claws digging out chunks of rock in the desperation of its rush. Alice's eyes widened, and she started to try to rush after it.

I wasn't really thinking. Alice had been so well-behaved, it was like I forgot she was a newborn. I reached out and grabbed her arm to hold her back from following in pursuit of the animal as it disappeared from the bluff and scampered into the forest.

Alice was controlled by pure instinct. I knew what it was like, the uncontrollable urges and the single-minded focus on blood. The only vampire I knew who had any semblance of control over themselves in such a state was Carlisle, but that was only because he was the most gentle and conscious creature to walk the planet. And a fresh newborn certainly couldn't be held to that standard.

Alice wheeled on me, trying to rip my arm off in removing my grip while simultaneously trying to knock me to the ground. She was snarling and growling, and her red eyes seemed to darken in her rage.

I backed away, my heels at the edge of the cliff and giving me the opportunity to fall back if she didn't reign in her rage and find some control. And that didn't seem likely.

But Kate had dropped down behind Alice, reappearing from her hidden perch in the trees. She reached out to also grab Alice by the arm, just as I had done, but her touch came with a subduing shock that sent Alice to her knees and drew a pained scream from her mouth.

Kate pulled her ability back but kept her grip on Alice's arm, holding her in place as she rose back to her feet. Alice's eyes had returned back to the familiar red, her mouth was open and her face pinched and drawn.

"It's okay, Alice," I said softly, my hands still extended. I took a step forward, but Alice backed into Kate. "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong. We just can't hunt mountain lions right now. Not here, anyways. We have to pay attention to the environment around us, so we don't draw too much attention or let ourselves impact nature," I explained.

Alice was unreceptive. It was like she hadn't even heard me. She sucked in an uneven breath and a sob ripped out of her in her exhale.

"I… I almost…" she stammered, her ruby eyes glimmering with venom.

"But you didn't!" I objected. "I shouldn't have surprised you. It wasn't fair of me to put you in that position," I said understandingly.

Alice ignored me again, her hand coming up to wipe at her unshed tears. Her fingers were almost trembling.

"I could've hurt you," she whispered. "I wanted to."

"It's fine, Alice," I promised, but she wouldn't stop crying. Nothing I was saying was of any help, and before I could find another way to comfort her, Alice spun around on her heel and dashed away, Kate trailing behind her and calling out for her to talk.

I sank down in place, tired in my defeat.

Everything I did was wrong. And I couldn't stop failing. I had just wanted to set things a little right, make it a little more fair for our cousins who were sacrificing so much. And in that vain effort, I had only served to make everything worse. Alice had been thriving off her confidence and in one fell swoop I had destroyed it.

It circled me back to another thought I had had, and pushed away, but what was sitting stolid in my mind now.

Edward, of course. The sudden but immovable flip of his demeanor towards me. It was me who had cursed Alice to this existence, and Edward had seen every gruesome moment leading up to her change.

I could acknowledge how cold he had been, after I changed Alice. The difference in just the set of his face was stark. He hadn't held it against me that we had been forced to run. Even though there was something clearly wrong with Alice, he didn't blame me for it. Our last easy moment had been under a night just like this, where the sky got so dark that the stars shone like that had when I was young. He made me feel young. The novelty of existence had long since worn off, and nothing had seemed particularly exceptional or special anymore. Stars were stars, night was night, and it came at the end of every day. It was routine. But suddenly, everything seemed new again, like I was seeing it all through Edward's eyes.

I looked down at the waterfall rushing beneath my bare feet. It was infinite, or as infinite as was tangibly possible to exist. It had been there long before me, and would likely be there long after I was gone, whenever and however that end came. The water fell in a rush, like it had some important duty to attend to and couldn't wait.

Edward would have loved it. He loved nature. He loved water, and I loved watching him move through it. The water would ripple around his waist, his skin bare and exposed. I would be free to trace over the imprinted burns on his stomach and up his chest, right over the trembling pulse of his heart.

I could almost hear it in my mind, and I closed my eyes and let myself pretend that he was somewhere near. Maybe even at my side. I could hear him everywhere- the dry chuckle of his laughter in the breeze through the trees, the evenness of his breath in the sleepy sigh of a squirrel nestled on a nearby branch. His scent was in the lingering memory of sunshine and the sweet honeyed nectar of the summer wildflowers, the green of his eyes lived in a billion leaves of a million trees.

I wondered if it could be enough. When there was a finality to my end, and Edward was gone, would I be able to find comfort in him living on in the memories all around me? Could I exist in some kind of anti-Kantian state of transcendental nature and, as Thoreau so desired, "suck out all the marrow of life" through the flowing continuity of nature?

My eyes were still closed as someone approached. Their gait was light but purposeful, and there was a dramatic sashay in each step. I was assuming Tanya, but Irina wasn't out of the question, if she wasn't off with Kate and chasing after a crying Alice.

The running was coming from above, and she jumped down to the winding bluff I was lounging on. She stepped over the discarded bodies of the three mountain lions, stopping and pausing just behind me.

I didn't move, instead staying still and seated with my legs dangling off the cliff. I still had my eyes closed, but I was letting a vivid memory of Edward laughing at Emmett drinking milk on a dare play behind my eyelids.

"You're an idiot," she said in a flat monotone.

My breath needlessly caught in my throat. I whipped around, my neck cracking with the speed of my haste.

She was standing stock-still, her arms crossed over her chest and her hip cocked in dramatic attitude that I never could have pulled off myself. She was in dark jeans and heeled black boots that didn't look conducive to running but were obviously muddied and worn. The silk of her red shirt matched the natural color of her full lips, and her golden hair was thrown up in a casual ponytail that was both messy and absolutely perfect, as if she knew that any other style would have been overdoing her glamor.

"Rose!" I gasped, jumping up to greet her but sitting back down as she stared me down.

She glared at me, her mouth pulled into a tight line and her eyes narrowed.

I couldn't stand to look at her. Guilt was choking me down, and I huddled into myself, trying to make myself smaller.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Why?" She asked immediately.

I glanced up at her, her gaze still sharp and piercing. I looked back at my shoes, my teeth slicing into my bottom lip.

"I know how you feel about me changing Alice-"

"How?"

"What?"

"How do you know what I feel?" She asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. It felt like I was in a crime movie, in a dark interrogation room with a light shining on me and a hardened agent staring me down. If I had a heart, I knew it would have been racing.

I stuttered into an explanation. "I mean, I know how you must felt, what with-"

"You never came home. You haven't spoken with me, so you have no idea how I feel."

I was thoroughly chastised into silence.

"Well?" Rose prompted venomously. "Are you going to ask me how I feel?"

"How do you feel?" I whispered.

"I feel like you're an idiot."

"I'm sorry," I said again.

"What exactly are you sorry for?"

"For… changing Alice?" I guessed meekly.

"Are you actually? You regret changing her?"

I swallowed thickly and thought of Alice just that morning. She was enraptured by some fluttering butterflies in a field of wildflowers, and danced and twirled through them. Her skin was sparkling in the buttery morning sun, and her dark hair was stuck up on all ends. She looked like an ethereal being, an elfish fairy of the forest or some other creature of lore- other than the bloodsucking vampire she actually was. She looked… she looked like Alice.

"You don't," Rose said matter-of-factly, accurately assessing my expression.

I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth and shook my head.

"That's because you're not a terrible person."

I looked back up at her. Rose was still frowning, but her expression was otherwise unreadable.

"I don't regret changing her," I admitted, both to Rose and to myself.

"You don't regret changing me, either."

I found myself staring at the scuffed canvas of my shoes again as I shook my head. I had never regretted changing Rose, even when she was screaming cursing and throwing whatever she could get her hands on at my head.

Blood may be thicker than water, but venom was thicker than both. I wondered for years if it was what had kept Rose with us the first few years, before Emmett and when she had been deeply miserable and enraged with me.

"Edward told me what happened."

I bobbed my head in some semblance of a nod, trying not to flinch at the sound of his name. "I didn't have a choice, not really-"

Rose interrupted again. "You should have been the one to tell me."

I gritted my teeth, trying not to let the anger take over. She just kept cutting me off, kept culling my explanations and standing haughtily and expecting me to bow to her.

"I needed to be here, with Alice," I said shortly, jaw tight. I had changed Alice, and it was my responsibility to see her through as much of the transition as I could, especially when I would have to disappear for an indeterminant- and possibly permanent- amount of time.

"You needed to be home with Edward, too, with your family," Rose said flatly.

"Alice is our family now!" I objected, yelling loud enough to send a squirrel scurrying off in fear. Venom pooled in my mouth, both in response to my anger and the natural reaction to terrified prey.

I expected Rose to argue, to fight back and yell, but none of this was going how I would have expected. She huffed and her shoulders deflated, her expression softening as she sank to the ground beside me. She kicked her shoes off and let her legs hang over the ledge as well.

"I know. And… and I think she was before, too," she said softly, looking down at our bare feet hanging side-by-side, equally smooth and pale and glowing in the hazy moonlight.

"Emmett always liked her," I pointed out. Even as a human, Alice had lacked that natural fear of us. I had never, ever seen anyone just walk up to Emmett and strike up a conversation with him. Even others of our kind were intimidated by him, much less a waif of a human girl well under five feet tall. But Alice didn't care.

"So did everyone else," Rose murmured.

"Except you."

"Except me," Rose agreed. "But I didn't like anyone at first. You know it takes me a while to warm up to someone."

"I do know," I sighed, dropping the defensiveness of my posture. "I know how difficult this must be for you. I always told you I would never change anyone else, and then Edward came along as a human, and everything changed. But I thought you would have plenty of time to adjust, with Edward, and now…"

"And now, we have a new sister."

"We have a new sister," I repeated in confirmation.

"At least she has a modicum of fashion sense."

"She likes shopping, too," I threw in, not bothering to hold back a small smile. If this was the extent of the fight Rose wanted to have, it was briefer than some arguments over me not wanting to wear nail polish, an act markedly less permanent and momentous than biting someone.

"If she was into cars, she'd be the perfect woman."

"You might be able to convert her yet," I offered. Alice had the most bizarre and obscure interests, I wouldn't be surprised if she was some kind of mechanics savant.

"They're so impressionable at this age."

"Maybe a bit too much," I mumbled, thinking about Irina's playful invitation to Alice earlier in the night. I loved Tanya, Kate, and Irina. I really did. They were incredibly fun and always such a lively group. And there was an intense bond we shared over our respective value for human life, and the development of a conscious separate from the intent of our nature. Even Esme, Rose, and Emmett couldn't understand, because they had all been created with that intention. Tanya, Kate, and Irina had learned their control entirely independent from anyone else- even Eleazar and Carmen had their support and guidance after they left the Volturi.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rose asked. I explained what had happened, as minute as it seemed, and found the words coming easier and easier. Rose sat silently and let me rant and vent, attentive with no outward reactions.

I told her about everything. It all spilled out- my decision to not take refuge in the city and instead take them to the countryside, how I was tending to Alice medically even though she clearly needed more intensive care. I told her how tiring it had been to hold my shield up for so long, and how there had been a pulsing and aching band crushing into my head, and the accompanying burning thirst in my throat. But everything had faded away when Edward touched me, and in that distraction, I had led James straight to us. I shouldn't have underestimated him. His tracking ability had been far more like Demetri's than I was expecting, and it was so exacting that he was upon us in minutes, and stealing Alice away in the blink of an eye and singular beat of her heart.

I told her every gruesome moment of the chase after Edward, and then finding Alice. The venom was sitting in my mouth as I relished in the details of the fight. Victoria had fled like a coward, but I had gotten to rip James limb from limb, and Rose and I shared a sadistic smile at the memory.

I glossed over changing Alice, but I knew Edward had likely already told her everything of that. I had to give her my side, though. She had to understand how Edward had shifted. His expression had gone cold after the mourning had passed. He had stopped crying, but he had also stopped talking, too. We spent the entire drive to the airport in silence, and the plane ride as well. The only time he willingly touched me was in a half-hearted hug goodbye before he left with Carlisle and Esme, and that had been a pained and awkward encounter. I could tell with every fiber of my being that he wanted nothing more to do with me.

"I was wrong," Rose said after I finished. "You're not being an idiot."

I inflated with a sense of righteousness, though the reason for it was tragic. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, they had all told me I was being ridiculous for weeks, but Rose was seeing my side and finally had the full story.

"You're being a super idiot."

"What?" I stammered, caught off guard.

"I don't think I've ever seen someone act as absolutely, mind-numbingly stupid."

I stared at her blankly, my mouth open.

"You and Carlisle think you're the smart ones, but I'm not so sure," she started, snorting and shaking her head derisively. "You've been telling me for months how much Edward means to you. I didn't like it. No human deserves this existence, to have their futures stolen and their bodies frozen. But I couldn't deny the bond you share, especially when it was clear he reciprocated."

I knew what she was thinking of. That sunny morning when everything was new, just before I showed Edward for the first time what I looked like in the sunlight. Rose hadn't been pleased with my infatuation through the course of it, but Edward had strode out of the house with a bouquet of handpicked wildflowers tied together carefully with a silk ribbon, and not even Rose could deny the gravity of it. It seemed small on the outside, but it was the most genuine and touching of gestures.

"It's the same as between you and Emmett," I corrected. "It was instantaneous, even if it took you longer to come to terms with it."

Rose smiled at me, her lips curling over her teeth in a soft sneer. "Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"You're so dense sometimes," she laughed, shaking her head.

I narrowed my eyes into a glare. "Get to the point, Rose, or, and I mean this in the kindest way possible, shut the fuck up."

"You said it yourself! It's the same as between me and Emmett. The same!" she cried, and jumped up to her feet. I turned my head to watch her pace along the very edge of the bluff and step into the waterfall. "Do you think that Emmett doesn't feel just as strongly for me as I do for him? That he isn't impacted by our bond?"

"Of course not, Rose. And I'm aware that Edward feels that connection as well. But it's not the same. He's human. He isn't influenced by our bonds and…" I swallowed, the venom burrowing into a ball in my throat.

"What?" Rose pushed, her brows raising expectantly.

I couldn't tell her. It's never made sense for him to love me. It never had. I had engrained myself into his life. Had I even given him a choice? Had I left any room for him? He had rebuffed me before, he had hesitated and tried to create distance but I had always pushed myself onto him. If our roles were reversed, I knew he wouldn't have the same problem as me. He was too good, too pure. He wouldn't have entwined his life so close with mine that the threads were inescapable, so when the inevitable end came to pass it wasn't so devastating to everyone around us.

"You leave in a month," Rose said, drawing me from my wallowing.

"I do."

"You can't leave things like this," she said shortly.

I sighed, but didn't respond. This was all a mess. It had been so smooth for months, but with the Volturi hanging over our heads, I had no other choice. And now, I had just created an absolute morass of detritus with no discernible path forward.

"No, I can't," I admitted.

"Edward needs closure. You can't just leave without speaking to him because you're making assumptions."

"No, I can't," I said again.

"You have no idea, Bella. It's incredibly unfair to expect him to have everyone he loves taken away from him and take it out on him because he needs time to adjust. He's the type of person to internalize everything. You can't expect for him to adapt and just move on."

"No, I can't," I repeated.

But Rose was on a roll with her rant, and I would let her go on. She had apparently been the one spending the most time with Edward in the past few weeks, so who was I to argue?

"It's beyond unfair. He was prepared to have a schedule with this. He told me that you two had planned, that you were going to go to school and help him adjust and settle into a routine before you left. And I know that this wasn't something you could have helped. I mean, how absolutely insane is it that James and Victoria became vampires, much less that one was a tracker who fixated on Alice? That's not your fault. But how you've handled the situation after? There are five of us, ten if you count our cousins here. You're not alone. We could have helped, but you had to take everything onto yourself, and it was at the detriment of everyone else. Carlisle and Esme have been sick with worry. He already blames himself for letting this Volturi situation get out of hand, but he also thinks he should have gone with you when you left, and that he could have helped with Alice. But have you called him? Have you asked for his help, showed him that you value him? No, you didn't.

"And with me? Bella, did you even think about me, and how I would feel about this? When you changed me…" Rose paused for a moment, and I could see the anguish engraved on her face. "I hated you for a long time," she finally said, quiet, "I know how much you love me, and always have. I know from the way you and Carlisle have explained it that changing someone changes you as well, and the bond that's created there. But we spent decades talking it through, and I exacted so many illogical promises from you to never change anyone ever again.

"And how hypocritical was that of me? I've spent my entire existence making you feel guilty, but I begged Carlisle to change Emmett. He was dying, and if I actually believed what I espoused, I would have thought it better to just let him die. You should resent me."

"I don't!" I interrupted.

"I know," Rose smiled, shaking her head and turning away to look out over the waterfall. "But you should. You could have held that against me for the past seventy years, it wouldn't have been out of line. But I had these promises from you, and then, while we're going insane with worry, waiting to hear from you, I have to find out thirdhand that you're on your way home after biting Alice.

"I'm not going to lie. I was mad. Well, maybe a little beyond just mad, but I kept telling myself that you would at least call me and let me know what happened. You're my sister, Bella. You're my best friend. I thought you would give me the courtesy of letting me know why you did what you did, and let me help you through it. But you didn't.

"I thought we would just talk in person. But Esme and Carlisle come home, and you're nowhere to be found. Edward looks catatonic and like he hadn't slept or eaten in weeks, and Carlisle is just shaking his head and talking to himself about failures and faults."

Rose pursed her lips, but I didn't say a word. There was something more she had to say, and it wasn't my place to interrupt her monologue. I mulled over her words in silence.

"You're a part of a family, Bella. That means we support each other. And that support goes both ways. You've been there for all of us throughout the years. You spent all those years helping Carlisle gain enough control to practice medicine, and you were so patient with the rest of us in that same journey. I was miserable to be around for a long time, but you never complained or snapped at me. You moved without judgement or resent every time Emmett or Esme slipped."

Rose's hand slipped into mine and she squeezed softly. Her eyes found mine, burnished gold smoldering in earnest now. "Let us do the same for you now. Let us take care of everything else while you take care of yourself."

My words were caught in my throat, and I choked back a sob.

I hadn't been expecting anything like this. I knew Emmett was disappointed in me, and I was sure Rose was as well, but I didn't think it would be for this reason. If I had imagined Rose tracking me down and setting me straight, it wouldn't have been so calmly and with such kindness.

I was still thinking of her as she had been, not as she was. Because, if I was being honest with myself, she hadn't been that rage-filled goddess in a long time. It wasn't fair of me to assume that she would have yelled and torn trees from their roots in her admonishment when she hadn't acted like that in decades, especially since she had been actively supportive of my relationship with Edward though she struggled with what I had once considered to be inevitable.

"You don't have to say anything," Rose said, but it was too late. I threw my arms around her, my face buried into her neck as I cried unshed tears. It was all too much. Separation from Edward was painful enough- I could feel the webs of loss spinning around my dead heart and compressing inwards. It was all too much, and I had been internalizing it all without letting anyone else help.

"I love you," I murmured. Rose laughed as her arms came around to hold me, warm and firm as she held me to her.

"I know," she said, a smile in her voice. She had one hand in my hair, stroking through it tenderly, and the other encircled me. Rose smelled like a complex array of floral scents- lavender buds and violet, white rose and iris. It was distinctly feminine, fiery and sweet. I had missed her. She smelled like home. "I love you too."

I pulled away from her, absentmindedly wiping my face though there were no tears. My eyes were still stinging from the venom that had gathered there, but it was a burn that paled in comparison to the breaking in my chest. Her hand brushed through my hair to come back and curl around my hand. We were staring at each other, a wordless understanding passing between us as the minutes passed. Her eyes were a clear and sparkling gold, shining in the pearly light of the moon.

"I need to go home," I said finally.