one: what I thought were dreams

"I don't want

To be human anymore

So I have covered the mirror

In blankets."

Melissa Broder, from The Purpose of Ritual

JACOB WAS smoky around the edges, russet-colored in skin and hair. He matched, the cusp of a change, and he was shivering in the smoky, dense air of the forest that surrounded the Cullen's house. I breathed in sharply when I saw him. It had been so long since the wedding that I hardly questioned the situation, although little warning bells were going off in my head. Church bells, hardly ignorable.

"Bella," He breathed, relaxing when he saw me. "I'm so happy you're... you're..."

"Human." I finished, looking around the clearing. Of course he would be. There wasn't anything but the fog, Jacob, and a faint line of trees surrounding us. "Jake, do you know where we are?"

"The resting place." He said, like I should have known.

I furrowed my brow. "The what?"

"Bella, you know," He replied. His voice was exasperated, almost irritated. "Where we go when we- you know. When we die."

"I'm dead?!" I didn't feel dead. I raised my arms above my head, took a deep breath of cold air. What about Edward? And... the baby. If I was dead, then surely the baby would be, too. Unless he was strong enough to live on his own? Even though he'd been growing so fast, I wasn't sure. Or maybe this was the middle ground between life and death; humanity and vampirism. My hands automatically dropped to my stomach. Nothing. Flatter than even before I'd been pregnant. My heart- or what I perceived to be my heart- started racing.

And I couldn't ask Jacob. He didn't know about the baby, not in real life, and not in this strange half-world of forest and fog and loss.

"A part of you did," He replied vaguely, his eyes full of pity. "I'm sorry, Bella."

"Why?" I asked frantically. What had started as a weird quasi-dream was now quickly progressing into a nightmare. Even the trees seemed more imposing, as if they were tunneling in on me. "Jacob, what do you mean?"

"Renesmee," He spoke softly. "A part of me died, too, when it happened. That's why we're both here."

"Renesmee?" I asked, astounded. At once I knew what he was talking about. The baby, not the little boy I'd dreamed of, but a girl. My daughter. Our daughter. Edward and I. "Dead? How? I- I would have given my life to protect her-"

"Because of him." Jacob's voice was full of revulsion. "Edward. He killed her. He murdered her, and he murdered us, Bella. Everything. You, me. She was my soulmate. My imprint, from the moment I was supposed to see her. She was your daughter. You loved her more-" Jacob's voice broke, like shards of glass.

I could feel every pain I'd ever felt in my life at that moment. Everything. How it felt to be bitten by James, or breaking my leg, or every one of the many injuries I'd sustained in my short life. It didn't measure up with the pain I felt at the loss of her. Renesmee. Renesmee.

"You loved her more than your own life, Bella." Jacob finished softly, kind now.

I felt myself cry, barely registering the heat of the tears that cascaded down my face. "How could he do that? He loved me. He promised he would never hurt me. He-"

"He wanted to protect you." Jacob said dully. "The problem is, the fucker doesn't know how to protect you. He gave you a gift, even if I wouldn't have been able to see it until I met her. But he took her away. Him and Carlisle and that blond bloodsucker. They got you by yourself, drugged you. Right now you're still in that study that Cullen, Senior turned into an operating room. You didn't even have a clue."

"How am I there, when I'm here?"

"You're here to say goodbye." Jacob answered, voice full of pain. "To me, and to everything you lost."

"I don't want to say goodbye," I replied, my voice thick with tears. I knew what would happen next, as if it was in my bones, my very DNA. "I don't want to know, Jacob. I want her, and you. I can't say goodbye."

"You have to, Bella. That's why we're here." Jacob looked into the trees. "She's coming, Bells."

I looked to where he was. And then I saw her.

I dropped to my knees instinctively. The smallest toddler of a girl, though perfectly proportioned and formed like a miniature adult, came hesitantly walking out from the density of the trees. She saw me, and I saw her, and I knew in that moment that nothing would be the same. I would never be able to forgive Edward. The love that came rushing out of me was purer than anything I'd ever felt in my entire life. I loved her differently, and I finally understood my mother's panicked voice on the phone, or Charlie's frequent and open hostility towards Edward. Renesmee was everything that mattered, and now I understood why I was here. Of course it had killed me when I couldn't protect her. Of course a part of me was dead, and Jacob too.

She ran to me. She was perfect, from her auburn curls to her wide chocolate eyes- my eyes, I realized with a start. How perfect they looked there in her cherubic little face, her skin a flawless porcelain, her cheeks slightly flushed, indicating her human heartbeat. She jumped into my waiting arms, like a piece of a puzzle, as much a part of me as the veins in my heart or the bones in my body. "Momma," She breathed. "You came home."

"Renesmee, baby." I cried into her hair. She leaned back, studied me with her wide, speculative gaze.

"Don't cry, Momma," She said, wiping the tears from my face. "You're with me now. And so is Jacob. We're together again, and that's all that matters."

I couldn't bear to contradict her beauty, or her surety. "I missed you," I said, my voice thick. "My little nudger."

Renesmee gave me a wide, brilliant, pearly-toothed smile. "I missed you, too, Momma. I've been waiting forever," She said proudly.

Jacob came up to us, and looked at me over her head, his eyes blazing. But he didn't say a word. I understood immediately. Neither of us would say something that would upset her; it was cruel, unjust even in thought. It was like the whole world made sense when I held her, when she shifted in my arms. She was sturdy, and a little cooler than perhaps a normal child, but she was perfect.

We sat there for many moments, or possibly forever, just with me holding her, inhaling her lovely scent, memorizing her beautiful face. So much mine, and yet so much Edward's. And even though I could not forgive him, a deep love still burned. Look what we had made. How could he have ever thought she was a monster? How could he have taken her away from me?

Renesmee must have seen a shift on my face from love to fury, and her brow furrowed and her eyes dropped. "I have to go now," She announced sadly. "It's time."

"No," I said, commanding.

"Yes," She said, confirming. "Momma, I don't want to. But I have to. I'm not allowed to stay much longer."

"I love you." I told her. I wasn't going to spend my last moments with her having a breakdown; I couldn't do that, not even to the memory of her. "More than my own life."

"Plus que mon propre vie, Momma. That's what you said. I love you, too. I-" Renesmee's eyes filled with tears. "I always did. I never meant to hurt you, I-"

I gathered her up into my arms, I held her close. "I never thought you did, baby." I told her gently. "From the moment I felt you, everything changed. You became my world. And this doesn't change anything. I will always love you more than anything. Please, remember that."

"It's not goodbye, Momma." She told me softly. "I'll see you again someday."

I looked at her and smiled, and she gave a radiant, crooked smile in response. "I know. You'll wait for me? You promise?" She nodded fervently.

"Jacob will be with me soon." She announced, happy, with something like possession. "He won't keep me waiting. But I won't see you for a long time, Momma." She kept her smile, although it wavered. "Don't come to me soon, Momma. Jacob is different. He was made for me. But you made me. You can't come to me too soon. You have to promise me." As she spoke, she grew. From a toddler to a teenage girl, standing up with me, holding my hands tight. Her voice grew stronger and more mature, until she was my equal, my height exactly, although more beautiful than I could ever hope to me. "Promise me, Mom. You have to stay."

I looked into her eyes that so mirrored mine, and I knew with a resigned intuition that I would not see Renesmee again for a long, long time. "I promise, Renesmee."

She smiled at me. "I'm sorry, Mom. About everything. The burning. I'm sorry."

I could feel it, but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing her. "It's nothing, baby. I love you."

"I love you, too." She turned from me. "Jake?"

He came over, held her hand. The burning was getting stronger now, and I could hardly keep the look of pain off my face. But I knew I must.

"I love you, Bella." Jake said. "Thank you for everything. And I will see you again."

I nodded. "I love you, Jake. I'll see you." And as they turned from me, Jake gave me a smile like the ones he'd give me when we worked on the bikes together, the pre-wolf ones. He was no longer shimmery around the edges. He was whole, younger, with that sunshine smile again. And then as quickly as they were in front of me, they disappeared, and I was alone.

The forest became eerily silent, and I sat on the floor, holding my chest with my arms like I'd done those long nights when he had left me, and I sobbed.

I could feel the fire, moving through my veins, but I welcomed the pain. I delved into it. I embraced the fire, the pain, because I knew I deserved it. I had lost her. The one thing I swore to protect, that I needed to, I had lost.

I deserved hellfire. And so when the venom overtook me, I threw myself to it. I let it consume me, like chaos, like ice.

And, for the first time in my existence, I hated Edward Cullen.