Chapter Text
WHEN IS DEATH THE MOST ETHICAL OUTCOME? was scrawled across the whiteboard in blue marker. The professor had foregone his usual PowerPoint slides - he had made it clear at the beginning of the seminar he expected a “spirited debate.”
Rosalie sighed internally.
This again.
Edward shifted in his seat next to her, which reminded her that it was time to uncross and recross her legs. They were both in the back of the lecture hall, but that was no excuse to start slacking on the human charade. The profound stillness that vampires were capable of tended to create subtle feelings of distress in humans.
There were a few other people in the back row with them, and several of them had a tendency to stare at Rosalie when they thought she wasn’t looking. She recognized the slack jawed, slightly vacant expression - she’d seen it a million times before.
If they were going to stare at her breasts with such intensity, no matter how nastily and often she glared at them, she would have to make especially sure it looked like they were attached to a human body.
Some joker in the front row raised his hand and started on a long-winded comment about the moral imperative to preserve human life at all costs. Rosalie didn’t recognize him, so he probably wasn’t in her biochemistry cohort. He must be in Edward’s biomedical sciences group.
Of course she and her brother were stuck in the biomedical ethics course together, the one class Rosalie really hated. They were both taking undergraduates full of premed students - technically they were premed students, so it stood to reason that some class coordinator decided an ethics class was in order.
They were doing it as a favor to Carlisle, again, who was feverishly working in the county hospital. Left unsaid was the queasy reality that this might be their last decade in the human world at all - that increasingly omnipresent biometric and surveillance technology might soon force them into hiding. The rumors that the new iPhone would require a thumbprint, which none of them had to spare, only exacerbated the sense of creeping dread in the Cullen household.
Rosalie’s professors wanted her to create a LinkedIn, to make websites and host resumes on the internet. The Cullens were comfortable in a world of paper and ink that could be manipulated by a skilled forger. They would not be able to survive the digital age.
They were all coping with the uncertain future in different ways.
Alice had taken to spending days at a time holed away in Jasper’s office, only to abruptly leave for days and return with suitcases full of gold.
It was less inconvenient than the feverish months in 2009 when she had used every socket in the house to run computers that generated some kind of fake internet money, but just barely.
Emmett was the same as he always was, perhaps a bit pointedly so. Whenever Rosalie tried to sit him down for a serious talk, he’d just shrug his shoulders and start telling her about his latest diversion.
Bella and Edward…
Edward shot her a glare when he noticed his name in her thoughts.
Bella and Edward were their usual selves. So was Esme, for that matter.
Carlisle was facing a life without the ability to practice medicine - at least officially - and was trying to compensate by cramming as many hours in as he could. They hardly saw the man these days.
Rosalie, try as she might to find a future where they could keep up the charade, was starting to realize that their time in the human world might be coming to an end. It wasn’t a thought she liked to have. She had sat down one night at her little desk in the garage and tried to work out, considering Moore’s law, the maximum amount of time they had left.
Optimistically, they were looking at 10 years.
Very optimistically.
With that timeline in mind, she tried to banish the thoughts until later. She would have a few years of relative humanity and she would appreciate them as much as she could.
That was easier said than done.
Somehow Front Row Boy was still talking. His stance was simple, predictable, and profoundly stupid. Blah blah blah, no one has the right to take away life, blah blah. Like he actually knew what kind of monstrosities people were capable of. Even Carlisle, staunch defender of humanity, had to concede that the world was a better place without some people in it.
As if on cue, someone interrupted him - thank goodness - to ask what defined life.
Front Row Boy, full of bluster, said a heartbeat counted. Rosalie rolled her eyes. Good to know biomedical ethics courses were still stuck on the same questions as they were 40 years ago.
It almost felt like deja vu, except there was less overt misogyny and more women in the classroom. All it really came down to was fewer blond jokes and more women salivating over her chest. Hooray for progress, she thought dryly
Front Row Boy was getting red in the face - he’d backed himself into an argumentative corner. He seemed like the type of kid who was the smartest one in high school and made that his whole identity. Rosalie was familiar with the type. Too bad the kid was now at Dartmouth and surrounded by other people who were the smartest ones in their high schools.
A girl with a blunt bob that did not suit her face shape raised her hand and shot a challenging look at Front Row Boy. The professor called on her, and she started talking in an impassioned voice. “By your logic, people who are brain dead and fetuses must be kept alive at all costs. That would make abortion immoral, even in cases where fetuses were conceived though incest or rape, which -”
Rosalie’s mind went blank, even though Ugly Bob Girl was still talking. The muddy outlines of a dimly lit alley seen through weaker eyes was starting to take shape in her mind.
No. Not here. Rosalie grit her teeth together and forced herself back into the classroom.
As she leaned forward, a wavy lock of her hair fell into her peripheral vision. It was one of the tendrils she’d left out of her artfully arranged messy bun inspired by an article she found online. It looked nice, but it hadn’t had quite the look she wanted - she’d gotten multiple new types of mousse and a leave in conditioner, none of which had the desired effect. Rosalie idly thought about signing up for a materials science course - maybe then she’d have better luck with her hair.
Edward sent her a disgusted look. He was probably judging her for thinking about her looks in the middle of a very important lecture. Never mind that Rosalie could argue circles around every single student and the professor. With citations.
We’ve both heard every argument before, Edward. Hop off your high horse, she thought pointedly.
He shook his head minutely and scoffed before turning back to the lecture. Blunt Bob and Front Row were now all but shouting at each other, while the professor looked on gleefully.
He’d gotten his spirited debate.
The ghost of the alley was still lingering in the back of her mind, as if it were waiting for another moment of weakness to exploit so it could submerge her.
She wouldn’t let it. Edward let out a barely audible groan as she started reciting the ingredients of all 18 new hair products she’d purchased.
Only 20 minutes until the seminar was over and she could find a real distraction. Rosalie had finished with the ingredient, and moved on to visualizing their chemical structures.
She’d find Renesmee for a shopping trip after this. They could both use a wardrobe update, and Renesmee would probably appreciate some mall time. The girl was obsessed with a new human food trend - some kind of yogurt. They could go to the mall together, get some of the frozen yogurt, see a movie, take photos for Renesmee’s “instagram.”
The girl couldn’t have an actual account, of course. They couldn’t even really take photos with their smartphones - Rosalie had taken it upon herself to actually read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy for each new release.
There was no way to tell where their texts and photos would end up on the new model of phones, so they simply did not use them. Better to be less connected to the human world than to have secret-ruining evidence on hundreds of drives in data centers across the world.
The Volturi wouldn’t cut them any slack if incriminating evidence made its way onto social media.
They made do - she and Renesmee had a photo album they’d written Instagram on and filled with cute polaroids.
Rosalie’s Nokia lit up. They all had modified brick phones for communicating with each other. Speak of the devil, she thought wryly. Renesmee had texted her. Rosalie looked around - everyone was totally entranced by the screaming match happening in the front row - and surreptitiously flipped open her phone.
From: Nessie
Timestamp: 2:10 PM
Message body: auntie R me n uncle emmett have a surprise 4 u at home <33333 :3 >:D ;^)
Rosalie smiled to herself. Her beloved niece hadn’t been this excited in a week. She’d been feeling blue since Alice and Bella went on a vacation together - a sister trip to Paris. Rosalie was invited, but the invitation felt cursory. Rosalie would probably only bring the mood down if she came with.
Rosalie smothered the familiar sting of loneliness and exclusion and tried not to think about the barely disguised look of relief in Bella’s eyes when she made her weak excuse for not coming along.
They promised to bring her back something nice. She’d stridently requested - demanded, really, the new releases from a niche perfume house. Not that she got much use out of perfume - her own overwhelmingly sweet scent tended to drown others out. It would be nice to spend a few hours in the garage picking apart the new formulations and seeing what was in them, though.
When she was still human, French perfume had been a shining beacon of luxury, something so extravagant its very name had totemic value. She has French perfume, the other girls would whisper, and Rosalie would feel grand. She’d only ever had the one, a gift from -
Rosalie ground her thought process to a screeching halt. Renesmee was the important thing here.
She looked back at the message from Renesmee. Her style of texting was new - probably something she got from one of her websites. Even though they looked nearly the same age, Renesmee tended to go through rapid-fire phases, usually copied from the internet.
Doubtlessly she would treat Rosalie to a full complement of posts, “memes”, and youtube videos explaining her new “aesthetic” as soon as she got home. It could be a little overwhelming, but Rosalie just enjoyed spending time with her miraculous niece.
Renesmee also seemed to like spending time with Rosalie, a rarity in the family. Renesmee would always seek her out with a bright smile and something new she wanted to show her favorite blonde (this clarification had been put in place to pacify Alice) aunt. Rosalie tried to play it cool, but in truth she cherished the bond with her niece more than she could possibly express.
She smiled and sent off a quick reply before settling back in to watch the show.
From: Rosalie L. Hale
Timestamp: 2:11 PM
Message body: Can’t wait! I’m sure it will be fun.
Renesmee was bouncing up and down on Esme’s cream bouclé couch, the new one that replaced the victim of the badger incident while Emmett finalized the AV setup. One of the ambient Cullen house laptops had been hooked up, and the YouTube video was set to play.
Uncle Jasper was holed up in his study but had promised to come out for the big event, and Grandmother Esme was on the other side of the room, knitting a scarf for a local charity drive at light speed.
It was too bad Mama and Alice weren’t here for the surprise, but Mama had promised to take her anywhere she wanted. Renesmee had begged her to take her to London, so she could see the country she had come to adore through Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. And Carlisle, she supposed, but that was more of an afterthought. The London he described seemed so … dour. And filthy.
Even though he had assured her that people were quite fastidiously clean back in his day, she couldn’t shake the image from TV and movies of English peasants absolutely coated in shit.
Renesmee had only been a SuperWhoLockian for a few weeks, but she had set the fandom aflame with finely rendered oil paintings in the neoclassical style of all the characters battling the apocalypse together. And sometimes kissing. She felt too squeamish to depict anything more than that.
Jacob had immediately invited himself along for the trip from his seat on the couch, where he was munching on a bowl of kale and parmesan chips.
Mama had promised her the trip, and seemed delighted that Jacob wanted to come. Renesmee was privately disappointed - she wanted some actual time with Mama, where they could really talk.
It happened so rarely, anyway. She was always either with Father in the cabin or out somewhere with Alice. Whenever she had time for Renesmee, Jacob usually found a way to insert himself.
He was always finding ways to be close to her.
She checked the time on her phone - Rosalie was due back from class any minute now. Jacob rarely came along when she went on trips with Rosalie - their relationship hadn’t improved much over the years. They could never resist sniping at each other over every little thing.
Edward would probably come home at some point the next day. Ever since Bella left on vacation, he had taken to keeping odd hours, only returning in the early mornings to change clothes.
Emmett’s head shot up. He cocked his ears, looking like nothing so much as a golden retriever trying to see if its owner was on the way home.
“Rosalie’s nearly back!” he exclaimed, vaulting over the couch in one graceful, catlike motion, landing on his feet behind the projector. “It’s all set up here, kid - do you have the YouTube video?”
“Affirmative!” Renesmee shouted, before remembering that Rosalie could probably hear them by now. She tried to suppress her excited giggles - this was going to be so much fun.
By now even her comparatively less sensitive ears could hear the roar of Rosalie’s car engine. Renesmee hadn’t gotten the car gene, but she did like spending time with Rosalie in the garage while her aunt worked away at an engine. Aunt Rosie always welcomed her and whatever new hobby supplies she’d picked up.
Jacob was never there.
The handle of the front door turned and Rosalie peered in, eyeing the inhabitants of the room suspiciously. It was only Renesmee, Emmett, and Esme, though Jasper probably counted since he could hear everything anyway. Jacob was off in Hartford, buying parts for a new mechanical thing. Renesmee had… encouraged him to run the conveniently timed errand. It was, after all, a special surprise for Rosalie.
“What’s all this?” Rosalie asked, still standing on the threshold.
“Like the little monster said, it’s a surprise,” Uncle Emmett said. In a flash he had scooped Rosalie up and deposited her on the couch, despite her protests.
Renesmee took up her position at the laptop. She and Emmett made eye contact, nodded once, and prepared themselves for the best surprise ever.
The video started with an animated opening over theremin music. There were two hosts, tall Jermaine and short Brian, that toured America to uncover the country’s “spookiest cold cases.”
“Today we’re investigating one spooktacular cold case - the missing bride Rosalie Hale and her murdered fiancé Royce King II. In today’s episode we’ll visit key locales, interview the locals, and see if this case is a shocking tale of murder or madness, or -”
A theremin leitmotif.
“Something altogether more…. Demonic!”
Rosalie had gone perfectly still, which Renesmee took to mean that she was concentrating.
The two presenters stood together, bundled up against the late autumn chill. One of them was wearing a floor-length white gown with long, loose sleeves and a high neckline.
“Ok Brian!”
“Ok Jermaine!”
“Today we’re going to investigate the 1933 disappearance of beauty queen Rosalie Hale.”
Rosalie’s voice cut through the hosts’ constant banter.
“It’s from the 70’s. The dress. It’s not - it’s not period accurate. Mine was going to be bias cut satin. That’s clearly rayon. ” After that, she lapsed back into perfect silence and stillness.
Renesmee crept closer to the couch as the hosts stood on the steps of a large Neo-gothic church.
“This is where Rosalie Hale, aged just 18, would have been married in the spring of 1933. But just a week before the wedding, she vanished!”
Finally, Renesmee reached the couch, where she perched on one of the arms. From here she could see Rosalie’s perfect profile.
Once, when she’d been little - barely 2 and the same height as the kitchen counter - Renesmee had interrupted the art history lesson Esme was giving her to run up to Rosalie’s room and tell her beloved aunt that she looked just like the Kauffman Head, just prettier and less chipped. Rosalie had smiled tightly before scooping her up and asking if she wanted to go to the big bookstore in Seattle.
That was when Renesmee was deep in her Greek Myths phase, so Rosalie got her the collected works of Sophocles as well as Jean Anouilh’s rendition of Antigone. It was a lovely outing and a cherished memory.
Afterwards, Carlisle had taken her out hunting - well, he hunted and she took little sips of whatever he got while trying not to make too much of a face at the rank taste of animal blood - and told her that Rosalie could be a little sensitive sometimes, and didn’t like it when people pointed out her vampire skin.
Renesmee had taken it to heart.
This video was all about her human life, so logically something that her aunt would enjoy more than comparisons to marble copies of the work of Praxiteles.
Rosalie still hadn’t said anything, or laughed even once. She just sat there, completely unmoving. Renesmee snuck peeks at her as the show continued, but her aunt remained so still that it was possible to watch the show interrupted through the reflection in her eyes.
“But how could Rosalie have vanished?” the host in the dress asked. “On that chilly April night, she was walking home from her friend Vera’s house.”
“Sources say she was alone and unaccompanied,” said the second host. “We’ve finally reached the part of the show you’ve all been looking for - the walk of fear. We trace the final steps of the doomed and try to make contact with the dearly departed.”
They stopped outside of a small brownstone house.
“This is the last place Rosalie Hale was seen - at the house of her friend Vera Fox, who also got married at like 16.”
“She was at least 17,” the other host retorted.
“Still a,” the next world was bleeped out, “high schooler! What were those people smoking back then?”
Renesmee rubbed at her ear. It felt like there was a painful itch. Emmett was staring at Rosalie with a look of pure befuddlement. She was still in the same position, arms folded and eyes glued on the screen. Except, Renesmee noticed, her mouth was very slightly open.
The hosts were walking now, and commentating on the dark streets.
“What do you think happened? Do you think she got kidnapped by a demon?” Wedding Dress asked.
“No one gets kidnapped by demons, and we’re not making that a bit on the show. Anyway, where would the demon even have gotten her? This street is so well lit.”
“We’ll see what the subscribers say about the demon kidnapping theory.” The host looked directly into the camera, and said, cheerily, “remember to like and subscribe, even if you don’t think Rosalie Hale was kidnapped by demons.”
He was interrupted by his co-host, who had reached out and patted his shoulder to catch his attention. “Hey, Jermaine, doesn’t this seem like kind of a likely place?”
He was pointing down a dark alleyway, wide enough for a few people to squeeze through. Renesmee tugged at her ear - it was really starting to hurt. The camera caught the lightning fast motion of a feral cat sprinting out of a dumpster.
“Sure does. I actually think this is the alley where they found her hat and a lot of blood, which is not the typical result of a demon kidna-”
The rest of the sentence was drowned out by a high, searingly painful noise. Rosalie’s mouth was wide open, but it took seconds for Renesmee to connect the ear piercing noise to her aunt.
She was screaming.
That was when the first crack appeared in the floor-to-ceiling window, and all hell broke loose.
When Rosale came to, the first thing she noticed was a gaping hole where the south-facing wall used to be. The next thing she noticed was Jasper kneeling on her back, holding both of her arms in an iron grip.
“Are you back with us, Rose?” Jasper asked in a voice so quiet only she would hear it.
Her mouth was full of - plaster dust? She ran her tongue over her teeth and felt chunks of something sweet and hard. It was an unusual and strangely familiar taste, but her feeling of curiosity was quickly smothered under a soothing blanket of calm.
“This might sound like an odd request, but could you please spit out what’s in your mouth?” Jasper asked.
She felt very agreeable and gently spit out the little objects. She couldn’t see them with her cheek pressed to the floor, but she could feel the thin string of venom that dripped from her mouth.
“Can I let you up, Rose?”
She nodded, cheek scraping along the hardwood floor. The weight holding her down shifted slightly, and the pressure on her hands lifted.
“Ok, let’s start easy. I’m going to let your arms go, and you tell me if you’re feeling calm,” Jasper said softly.
She’d never felt more calm in her life. Some critical emotional constant had somehow disappeared, and she was left feeling airy, like she’d been hollowed out and no one had filled her back in.
Jasper took his knee off her back and gently helped her up.
Emmett was standing at the head of the couch, hugging Esme to him with one arm. Something wasn’t right about her posture, and it took longer than it should have for Rosalie to realize that Emmett was holding her body in one arm and her head in the other.
“Jesus Rose,” he started weakly. “We always knew you could bite someone’s head off but this…”
He trailed off, and looked down at Esme’s limp body.
“Not the time,” Jasper hissed through gritted teeth. Rosalie felt another wave of calm descend over her. Any other time she’d be spitting mad at Jasper for manipulating her, but at the moment she was just grateful. Some instinct told her she would not be able to handle this situation with her full, unblunted emotional range.
“Where’s Renesmee?” she asked, a niggling sense of fear and urgency fighting to break past Jasper’s hold on her.
“She’s safe outside, don’t worry,” Jasper replied as he bent to pick up the rocks Rosalie had spit out. He noticed her looking and misinterpreted her stare.
“It’s to reduce scarring,” he said with a casual shrug. “It’s easy to miss a few bits, especially if you use your teeth to tear rather than sever.”
Rosalie’s hand rose to her mouth unbidden.
Jasper took Esme’s head and body, and had them laid out on the couch. He looked at the chunks of her neck in his hand with an appraising eye.
“Hey, a vampire jigsaw puzzle,” Emmett said. Jasper didn’t even look at him, too busy fitting the pieces back on the jagged surface where Esme’s head once sat. He sat back on his heels for a moment before picking up Esme’s head, turning it over, and licking the jagged edges of her neck.
“Holy - holy shit dude, that’s our mother!” Emmett looked like he was about to cry.
Jasper shot him an exasperated look. “I would consider Esme family, but she is most certainly not my mother.”
He went back to his methodical licking.
“That’s not what I - I didn’t- “ Emmett trailed off, before letting out what, in a slightly higher vocal register, would be considered a squeak.
From the place she was standing, Rosalie could see Esme’s face. Even upside down, it was clear to see that her face was locked in an expression of pained confusion. Every time Jasper licked the neck, her caramel-colored hair waved in the air.
Finally, Jasper righted the head and gently placed it back on Esme’s body. The excess venom caused the wound to seal up almost immediately, leaving her neck unmarked with the exception of a livid bite mark.
Within moments Esme blinked and slowly sat up.
“Rosalie? Jasper? Where did you come from? I thought…”
She trailed off and raised her hand to touch the new scar on her neck.
Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and Esme stared at each other in complete silence. When Jasper’s phone rang, it was almost deafening.
Alice’s distorted voice sounded loud and clear through the speaker.
“You idiots have two minutes to salvage what you want from the house, because Rosalie threw Esme through a load-bearing wall. Jasper, get the contents of safe and the documents. You can leave all my clothes.” There was an audible, frustrated sigh. “You need to stage another fire, but this is the last one. Congratulations, your time in the human world is up.”