Epilogue – 100 years later

I was poking around in the attic, looking for a length of chain. After 97 years, we had finally returned this week to the house in Forks, and all of us agreed it already felt like home again. We had spent the last two days shopping, restoring and repainting. My project today was taking out several trees that had grown up in our driveway. This task would normally take me less than an hour, but some of the trees were quite close to the road, and we had to keep up appearances. Edward and Emmett had spent an agonizingly slow morning cutting the trees down, and if I could just find the chains we had stored, I could use the new tractor to pull out the tree stumps in a sufficiently human way.

I thought I saw a metallic glint over in the far right corner, so I pushed aside the old cabinet that was blocking my path. I knelt down, but instead of chains I found a small metal box and I picked it up. Wiping the dust off the top, I realized it was one of many fireproof safes we used for storage. What could be inside this particular one? The tree project forgotten, I carried the box downstairs to find our storage keys.

"Renesmee, we've been through this a thousand times," I heard Edward say. "You are not a vampire. Your body has limits. There are things you simply can't do, and painting the entire house exterior in one afternoon is one of them."

I rounded the corner and entered the living room. Edward had just finished polishing an old wooden end table, and Alice was hanging from the chandelier, painting the parts of the ceiling she could reach from her perch. Our daughter was sprawled on the couch, and Jacob was rubbing her shoulders. She lifted her head up and grinned up at her disapproving father. "But I did, didn't I?" She laid her head back down and sighed as her husband gouged under her shoulder blade.

Edward snorted and turned to leave the room. Halfway to the door, though, he paused and spun on his heel, giving Jacob an icy glare. "That is not true, mutt," he said, answering one of Jacob's thoughts. Then he turned me. "Is it too late to annul their marriage?"

I ignored the argument, knowing it would blow over. "Does anyone have the storage keys? I'd like to see what's in here," I said, holding up the safe. Jacob reached down to the floor to rummage in his backpack, while still rubbing his wife's back with one hand.

"Here." He tossed me the ring of keys and I tried several before finding the right one. Edward walked over to look inside, curious as well. Inside was a thick stack of greeting cards, tied into a neat package. I broke the string with my fingernail and flipped through the envelopes. Almost all of them said either "Congratulations Edward and Bella" or "Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cullen".

"Oh! These are the cards from our wedding! I wonder why they were up there all these years?" I asked, looking up at my husband.

"When we returned from our honeymoon, they were still in the suitcases with the gifts. Those next few weeks were a little… tense," he said quietly. "I remember Esme unpacking for us. She must have put them up there."

I had very few memories of the pregnancy, and I was usually grateful for this, considering the physical pain I had endured. Now, though, I searched the few memories I did have. I recalled a fuzzy picture of suitcases with presents in them, but not much beyond that. I had no memory whatsoever of opening any cards. Accessing my human memories often felt like looking through a photo album where most of the pictures are either blurry or missing altogether.

Edward and I sat down on the couch to look through the cards. While we were doing this, the front door opened and our "parents" came in. Carlisle had a huge smile on his face. "Good news, everyone," he announced. "You are looking at the new Head of Pediatric Surgery!" Esme leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek, and everyone offered their congratulations. We knew Carlisle would have no trouble finding a position at the local hospital, but this had been the job he was truly hoping for.

Esme hung up her coat and announced she was going to start dinner for Jacob and Renesmee. Carlisle went back outside help Jasper with some yard work, and Edward and I turned back to the cards, enjoying reading them together. My eyes stung a bit when I saw the one from Renee, and like always, I wished I had the ability to weep. Memories began coming back to me as I read the cards, and visions of people I hadn't thought of in decades flooded my mind.

Edward smiled when he saw the card from our old friends, Ben and Angela Cheney. He held it up for me to see. "Bella, do you remember when we opened the cards? You wouldn't let me see them, and I had to guess who had written each one based on the scent."

There was a giggling sound from the ceiling, and we both looked up. "Of course some people can't mind their own business, and go around pawing other people's belongings," Edward said loudly. Now I was totally lost. What was he talking about? Edward turned to me. "Alice saw our game ahead of time and decided to rub her scent all over every card, just to be annoying," he explained with a smirk.

Alice dropped down onto the floor and darted over to stand in front of us. "I did that only because you had purposely given me a headache the week before by changing your mind about the wedding music… five hundred times in one day!"

"I don't deny it. But I did that only because you kept harassing Bella about stupid wedding details. I had to get you off the track somehow."

Alice bristled. "Well! If you weren't such a-"

"Alice," murmured Esme from the kitchen. "If you can't leave your brother alone, maybe you should come in here and help me with the salad."

Alice stuck her tongue out at Edward and in a flash, was back in the chandelier, painting as though nothing had happened. In our last school, the two of them had posed as twins, and had recently perfected their sibling banter into an art form. I rolled my eyes and turned back to the cards in my lap.

As I reached the end of the pile, I was surprised to find the last card unopened. This one simply had "Bella" written in a familiar scrawl – Jacob's. I held it up for Edward to see, and I relaxed my shield to ask him a silent question.

Why didn't we ever open this one? I asked, but Edward just shrugged. I glanced over at Jacob and Renesmee, who seemed to be deep in conversation with each other. While they weren't looking at us, I quietly tore the card open and read it silently. One thing I did remember was that Jake had been late to the wedding, and had to be escorted out by the pack because he had gotten angry. After checking to make sure the card didn't hold any offensive comments, I cleared my throat. "Here's your card, Jacob," I said aloud.

Jacob shot a nervous glance at his wife. She knew everything about the history between Jacob and me, but I knew he preferred not to bring it up. Edward nudged me and whispered, "He's trying to remember what he wrote, and he's hoping there's nothing 'mushy' in there, as he calls it."

"It's okay, Jacob," I told my son-in-law. "Approved for all audiences." I proceeded to read the card aloud.

Sorry I didn't have time to get you a real present. I won't pretend I'm happy about this, but I guess the important thing is that you're happy. So congratulations, and you know you can always call me if you need anything. Jacob

"That was very nice, Jacob," muttered Edward.

"I know! That was very mature of me, wasn't it?" Jacob said, and then he sighed dramatically. "I never got a thank-you note, you know." Instead he got a pillow in his face, courtesy of Renesmee.

.

.

.

The next morning Edward and I were slowly moving through the forest, searching.

"I think this is it," he called, his voice coming a half-mile from the west. I made my way over to where he was standing. He looked uncertain, and with good reason; this tangled mess of trees and brush hardly resembled the meadow that had been our favorite refuge a century ago.

"Are you sure?" I asked, looking around. I didn't see any of the landmarks that I remembered; there had been a rotting stump at the southwest edge of the clearing, and certain varieties of flowers... though of course those things would have long since vanished. At least most of the woods here had been protected over the years, and had even survived the war.

"Not quite, but look up there." He pointed up to the unbroken canopy of branches above us. Sure enough, the trees we were standing beside were several feet shorter than their neighbors. The disparity was noticeable in a shape that roughly resembled the diameter of our old meadow.

"There's only one way to find out for sure," I said mysteriously.

Edward raised his eyebrows, and I felt the familiar tingle of his gift pressing against my shield. "Oh no you don't," I muttered, and began to climb. Edward followed me.

"When are you going to tell me what we're looking for?" he asked in exasperation an hour later. I was getting exasperated too. Maybe this wasn't the meadow after all. But finally, my eyes snapped onto a familiar sight.

"Oh! Here it is!" I called, and he nimbly leapt through the treetops to meet me. There, near the top of one of the younger oak trees, was an engraved heart with "E+B" inside it. It was worn with time, but still there.

Edward gently ran his fingers over the engraving and turned to me with the crooked grin that I loved so much. "When did you do this?"

"On the day before we left. I knew it might be a while before we came back, and I wanted a way to find it again. And... I don't know, I just wanted to tell the world that it was our meadow."

"So that's why you ran off that day," he teased. "Rosalie thought you were just trying to get out of packing."

"Yeah, well, that too."

He pulled me into his arms, and we laid in silence for a while as he traced the carving again, cleaning away the nearby brush and deepening the letters with his nails.

"Renesmee and Jacob seem happy," he said after a while.

I nodded thoughtfully. "I think it's hard for Jacob to be back here, though."

Edward concentrated on the carving again, carefully sculpting around the top curve on the heart. "And you?"

I shifted in his arms, looking up at him until he finally met my gaze. Even after all these years, he still worried at times whether I was truly happy with this life he had given me. And I was. There had been plenty of heartache in the past century- the deaths of our human friends and family, troubles in the early years of our marriage, Renesmee's growing pains... the sorrow of watching the human world try to devour itself for a third time in war.

Those trials had long since passed. And there would be others. But this life was even more than I had hoped for... much more. Not only were Edward and I frozen in the throes of young love forever, but Renesmee had brought us so much unexpected joy. My friendship with Esme and the foundation we ran together meant so much to me. We had made a few new friends over the decades. I had developed so many interests, hobbies, and passions that I could never have conceived of as a human. And while I still liked to hide behind my hair during awkward moments, my shaky self-confidence had grown and blossomed in the confidence of my immortality, my gift, and the unshakeable support of the family.

I gently slid my shield aside, smiling as Edward's eyes lit up. I love you, Edward. Never doubt that. And never doubt that I belong here with you. I unearthed memory after memory, showing him once again that despite the hard times, I wouldn't trade this life for anything. We had been through this so many times- and while it was frustrating to see him occasionally doubt himself after all these years, I never grew tired of watching that doubt fade from his eyes, brightening into happiness as it was now.

"I know," he murmured, giving me half a smile. "I just thought that coming back to Forks might be... difficult for you."

I nodded. "It is a little weird. I'd like us to go visit Charlie's grave tomorrow."

"Of course." Then his smile grew. "Though I'm glad we came back. We would never have found our wedding cards, otherwise. I didn't realize how little you remembered about that."

I shrugged. "You know me and presents. Ugh."

Edward released me and leaned into the branches, studying me thoughtfully. "It gives me an idea, though..."

My eyes narrowed. "I still hate presents."

"All of them?" he teased, darting his hand out and slipping my rings off my finger. I pounced, but he laughed and closed his iron fist around the rings. "Let me keep them," he laughed, holding his hand up above my reach. "You can't wear them to school anyway."

"So this is your idea? Stealing jewelry from innocent teenage girls?"

"No, my idea is that we should do the First Sight thing again, here in Forks."

I lunged for his hand again, but he held down my shoulder, his laugh quieting into a hopeful smile. We had used all sorts of cover stories over the past century: adopted brother and sister, husband and wife in college, shuffling biological siblings depending on what the others wanted to do... but our "First Sight" ploy was Edward's favorite. He and the others- as many would be joining us in high school- would start a week or two ahead of me. Sometimes Emmett came along later, as well- just to break up the shock for the humans upon our arrival. The story was that I was the Cullen's newest foster kid, and had just moved in the day before. Sometimes we would break it up even further, having Emmett and I be completely unrelated to the Cullens- usually Jacob played the dad in that scenario, which gave him no end of entertainment.

So according to the First Sight ploy, all of our human peers would be there to see Edward and I "meet" each other and watch our romance slowly unfold. Rosalie and Emmett didn't have the patience to pull it off, but Alice and Jasper liked doing this too. I had to admit it was fun, and that it helped cut down on the matchmaker gossip, but it meant more attention from hopeful suitors in the beginning.

"You'll have to listen to boys drool over me," I protested.

He shrugged. "I'll get over it. Please?"

I tried another tactic. "Renesmee will complain."

"She's thinking about not doing high school this time. Please, Bella? We could get married again..."

I huffed a noise of protest, but he twisted into my lap to look at me upside down, his golden eyes pleading and already melting my resistance.

"Oh... all right."

Edward grinned and sat back up, depositing his own wedding ring in my hand with a flourish. "You know it makes high school more fun. And besides, getting married at eighteen is cool again. We won't be the only ones."

"You'd better not propose in the cafeteria again this time," I warned, tucking his ring into my pocket.

"I make no promises." He ducked in to steal a kiss, but I twisted my face to the side, determined to get him back for dazzling me.

"Stop it! We're not dating yet. Do I even know you?"

Edward's eyes darkened as he moved in again, growling slightly this time. I smirked and slipped out of his arms, dancing up into the higher branches. He darted around me in a blur, catching me and pinning me against the trunk of the nearest tree with a crunch. As we came together and time began to fade away, I let my shield fade away with it. Because when our forever came down to moments like this... I had nothing to hide.

The End