Rated M. It's gonna get dark up in here. This is AU/Breaking Dawn.

AN: Something a little different for me. We'll see how it goes! Much love to my beta, Stitchcat, and my pre-readers, JaspersBella and Hammerhips. *mwah*

Prologue

She whispers tomorrow will be better.

Her heart breaks and her body shakes, but she closes her eyes and whispers because she has to believe. She has to believe that tomorrow will be better. The daylight will bring relief. It has to. It's the way of life. The world will keep turning though hers may not - though she doesn't think it should.

Sitting against the bathroom door with her knees pulled up to her chest, just to have something to hold on to in a world that felt terribly lonely, though she can practically feel their concern from across the house.

Damn it.

She can't catch her breath. The simple in-and-out eludes her.

Breathing becomes a war she's not sure she wants to fight. "What a selfish thought," a voice that sounds like her father whispers through her mind, but she's sure it won't be her last moment of weakness tonight. Selfish or not.

Tears stream down her face as her very soul weeps. Her arms tighten around her knees, aching to hold the baby they now never would. She was empty as her womb, and all she could do was weep. Weep useless tears, serving no purpose.

Her palms press against her eyes, begging them to stop running, begging them to stop seeing a future she'd only been able to envision for the past few weeks. As bitterness takes root somewhere deep inside her, she can practically taste it on her tongue. In anguish, she cries out, only to shove her fist in her mouth to stifle the sound before she draws more unwanted attention.

"Stupid," she chastises herself.

To hope for what was a tenuous dream at best. To dare to go beyond that hope and dream. Stupid for envisioning that moment when Carlisle, in full scrubs with his chest swelled with familial pride, would pass her her baby to hold for the first time; their baby.

Every minute bowed over the toilet the last few weeks were worth it to her. Every dizzy spell, every second spent on the floor with a cold rag pressed on her forehead due to the dizziness was worth it to her. Until now.

Not now when she was left with nothing but pain, and the thoughts of what might have been.

He took something that he had no right to take. It was her choice, not his. Now, she'd make him pay.

Standing, wiping the last tears she'd shed in sorrow over what was taken, she turned on the water and splashed her swollen face.

If it was the last thing she did in her time on this Earth, she'd see him burn. And then she would mourn.