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#01 – Walking
She's never met a human so accident prone, so wholly unaware of gravity’s pull that even walking becomes a dangerous endeavor, and it shouldn’t be so endearing when Bella inevitably stumbles on thin air and looks back at her with a sheepish grin (but it is is is).
#02 – Waltz
She's never been much for dancing – the curse of being born with two left feet and all that – but with Rosalie leading, smooth and confident and so beautiful it makes Bella's head spin, she can finally see the appeal.
#03 – Wishes
In the months following the Cullen’s sudden departure from Forks, Bella wishes for so many things – most of which she’ll never admit out loud – but, even though she’s haunted by thoughts of golden eyes and diamond skin, she never quite manages to wish she’d never met them.
#04 – Wonder
Bella’s words – “Is this okay?” – echo in Rosalie’s ears in time with Bella’s own heartbeat and Rosalie can only look at her with wonder as she slowly leans in and whispers, “Yes,” against her lips.
#05 – Worry
Bella worries about not being good enough for her world, for her family, for her, and Rosalie worries that, one day, maybe soon, Bella will realize it’s been the other way around all along; that no one, her least of all, is good enough for Bella Swan.
#06 – Whimsy
Rosalie isn’t like Alice – made of tinkling laughter and whimsy and the whir of a sewing machine – or Edward (bone-deep melancholy against the backdrop of a finely tuned piano) or Emmett (joy and enthusiasm) or Jasper (regret and quiet kindness) or Carlisle and Esme (restraint and compassion and love love love); no, Rosalie is made of steel and engine oil, of rage and passion and fire, and Bella tries, she tries, but she just can’t look away.
#07 – Waste/Wasteland
She watches with thinly veiled distaste as Bella falls all over herself, over Edward, over air, only too willing to waste her humanity, her life, herself on a petty little boy who treats her like a shiny new toy, one he’ll hold interest in only as long as it suits him before leaving it forgotten on his bedroom shelf.
#08 – Whiskey and rum
Rosalie doesn’t remember what it feels like to drink alcohol, not the wince as it hits her tongue or the burn as it slides down her throat, but when newly twenty-one year old Bella Swan kisses her for the first time she’d swear that for a moment, just a moment, she can taste the remnants of whiskey and rum on her lips.
#09 – War
The savage growling of wolves reverberates in her chest like a baseline, the grating cracks of newborn vampire bones splintering echoes in her ears like gunshots, but beneath all the chaos, all the brutality, Bella’s heart beats like a siren song and, as long as that melody remains intact, Rosalie won't stop fighting until this war is over.
#10 – Weddings
Rosalie's always liked weddings, the glamor and the elegance and being the center of attention, but it’s different this time; it’s different because she’d loved Emmett but she doesn’t just love Bella, she lives for her and why that fact chooses to show itself in hands that won’t stop shaking and eyes that burn with venom-soaked tears she neither knows nor fully understands.
#11 - Birthday
Rosalie would never claim to know their resident human as well as Alice or Edward but the fact that Bella doesn’t like her birthday is written so plainly across her every visibly uncomfortable inch that Rosalie doesn’t last a full five minutes taking in her fidgeting hands and slumped shoulders before she sweeps through the room, wraps her hand around Bella’s elbow and quietly leads her up the stairs and out of sight.
#12 - Blessing
“Bella Swan,” Rosalie pauses to take in a slow breath, squeezing their joined hands, “You are a blessing I know I don’t deserve, a ray of light in an otherwise dark and unforgiving world, and I promise you, here and now, in front of our friends and family, that I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you.”
#13 - Bias
“I think Rose is the single most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world,” she says with an easy grin, one that widens when she feels a cool arm settle around her waist, “But I suppose I could be a little biased.”
#14 - Burning
The venom rages through her system like an unrelenting wave, burning through her every vein like acid-laced fire, and the last thing Bella sees before she spirals into unconsciousness is a distantly familiar blonde angel dropping to her knees and cradling her bloody wrist like it holds all the secrets of the universe.
#15 - Breathing
Rosalie hasn’t had to breathe in seventy-two years and yet, the first time she sees Bella Swan, the first time their eyes meet, she feels her chest expand without conscious thought and she would swear her cold, dead heart skips a beat.
#16 - Breaking
Edward looks between them with eyes like coals and Bella knows she’s breaking his heart but, as she turns her head to look at Rosalie, at her warm amber eyes and small, almost shy smile, she knows this is the only choice she’s capable of making.
#17 - Belief
Rosalie doesn’t put much stock in faith or gods, in anything or anyone beyond herself and her own two hands and, as she watches the woman who made her undead heart beat for the first time in over seventy years say ‘I do’ to her least favorite sibling, she reminds herself she doesn’t believe in fate either; when that doesn’t do anything to erase the venom-laced tears from her eyes, she digs her nails into her palms until cracks spider web out from fingertip to wrist.
#18 - Balloon
Rosalie extends the balloon bouquet with obvious hesitation, scowling slightly at the Forever 18 – undoubtedly Alice’s doing – printed boldly on the foil covered plastic before she meets Bella’s newly-red eyes and her lips curl traitorously upward as she whispers, “Happy Birthday, Bella.”
#19 - Balcony
Strong arms settle around her waist as she leans against the balcony rail overlooking the private beach where her daughter races a shifted Jacob across the sand, her laughter at least twice as bright as the diamond-like shine of her skin; sighing contentedly into her mate’s embrace, Bella tilts her head back to press a kiss to the underside of Rosalie’s jaw before returning her eyes to the scene below.
#20 - Bane
“You are the bane of my existence, Swan,” Rosalie says but her words lack bite and even the potential of venom is entirely forgotten as she reaches out with a gentle – always so gentle – hand to cup Bella’s cheek, “But, God help me, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
#21 - Quiet
Words are fickle things, Rosalie has learned, fickle and foul and infinitely less trustworthy than actions and perhaps this is why she decides she doesn’t mind when their resident human interloper begins slipping into her garage in search of reprieve from her more gregarious siblings, when she quietly curls up in the corner with a battered copy of Wuthering Heights and reads, leaving Rosalie just as free to shift her attention from one project to the next as she would be alone; perhaps Bella, too, knows the value of companionable silence.
#22 - Quirks
All humans have their quirks – Rosalie imagines she had them too, before her veins were flooded with venom and her traitorous heart ceased to beat – but surely she isn’t the only one who thinks Bella Swan possesses more than her fair share.
#23 - Question
Bella has rarely felt the need to question herself, to rethink her decisions, her choices, her words, but, as she stands in front of the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen – the same woman who has not only threatened but also saved her life on several fairly memorable occasions – with her heart in her hands, she can’t help taking a moment to wonder if this is really the right move; when Rosalie smiles at her, as soft and warm as a sunrise, she knows it is.
#24 - Quarrel
Even when they fight – and, rare though it is, they do fight now and then – Rosalie, even as her eyes darken until their normal amber hue is traded for a flinty obsidian, never raises her voice, never speaks so much as a single word above a normal octave and there’s something so wonderfully kind about it, about the way she keeps her tone measured because she knows anything louder will set Bella’s anxieties off like a trail of haphazardly stacked dominoes, that never fails to make Bella fall in love with her all over again.
#25 - Quitting
Edward’s abandoned her and, apparently, her newfound vampire family has too and maybe she’d known this was coming, maybe she’d always expected it to end this way – her mother had been only too happy to see the back of her, why would they be any different? – but that doesn’t make their sudden departure any easier to stomach, doesn’t make the acid pooling at the base of her throat any easier to swallow; still, if life has taught her anything thus far it’s to expect disappointment and to quit while you’re ahead, which is probably why the absolute last thing she expects to see when she trips over an overgrown root are the honey-gold eyes of one Rosalie Hale.
#26 - Jump
The tide laps at the rock face with the evenness of a heart beat, waves crashing like thunder with every strike against the jagged stone cliff, and far above it all, Bella stands with her arms wrapped tight around her middle and salt water coursing down her cheeks; she’s half-mad now, she knows, gaze corrupted with diamond-skinned ghosts and maybe that’s why she doesn’t hesitate to tip over the edge into freefall even after she sees a flash of gold in her peripheral.
#27 - Jester
Rosalie laughs, the sound as bright and clear as the noonday sky is not, and Bella realizes she’d be only too happy to turn herself into the living embodiment of a class clown if it meant being the cause of that beautiful sound even one more time.
#28 - Jousting
Rosalie looks pleasantly surprised the first time Bella doesn’t duck beneath Edward’s arm and hide when she insults her, instead throwing a sarcastic comment of her own making back at her; it’s the start of what quickly becomes their routine of verbal jousting, throwing narrow-eyed insults back and forth until one or the other of them laughs and the other follows suit (it’s the start of more than that too, even if neither of them knows it yet).
#29 - Jewel
Her sun-lit skin glitters like glass, like crystal, like diamonds, her eyes glint like liquid gold, and, oh, she'd known Rosalie was beautiful before her change but this, seeing her through ruby eyes, is like seeing her for the first time all over again.
#30 - Just
Killing Royce and his friends granted Rosalie revenge but not justice, never justice – what her family doesn't understand is that there is no justice for what was done to her, what was taken from her, and she has to live with that forever because another man came along, looked at the bloody ruin that was left of her, and saw a void she could fill for his son; over seventy years later and her family still doesn’t understand how she can hate them for that and maybe that’s why she doesn’t understand how Bella does.
#31 - Smirk
The corner of Rosalie’s mouth rises in a cavalier smirk that has heat crawling up Bella’s neck and settling across her cheeks before she’s even had time to register the shift; as her heart races traitorously within the confines of her rib cage, Bella comes to the unilateral decision that Rosalie Hale’s smile is the single most beautiful, and dangerous, thing she has ever seen.
#32 - Sorrow
There is an impossible depth of sorrow hidden behind the golden beauty of Rosalie’s eyes and every time, every single time, Bella catches so much as a glimpse of it she wants to pull the vampire into her arms and never let her go – even if it means losing one or both of her arms in the process, she's sure it would be worth it.
#33 - Stupidity
Rosalie knows it’s not a good idea, knows it’s selfish and foolish and dangerous in more ways than one, but she can’t stop herself from growing more and more attached to Bella Swan with every passing day any more than she can stop herself from wishing she still needed to breathe.
#34 - Serenade
Rosalie Hale is nothing like Edward Cullen – she doesn’t brood, for one, and she isn’t the type to write her a song and then serenade her over a very sweet, if somewhat cheesy, candlelit dinner – but, as she sits with her back against the wall of the Hale family’s garage while her girlfriend scopes out the rusty shell of her newly-purchased 1988 BMW M3 Convertible and gleefully outlines her plans for it, Bella can’t say she minds at all.
#35 - Sarcasm
“Oh no, Bella has a paper cut, clearly the answer is to shove her into a wall and then abandon her, maybe in the woods-” Rosalie looks up at the sound of Edward’s threatening hiss and rolls her eyes, “If you don’t want to be mocked, dear brother, stop doing stupid things; it really is that easy.”
#36 - Sordid
“You don't have to read minds to know the sorts of sordid thoughts those, those bastards were thinking, Bella,” – her voice is even but it feels forced somehow, almost as if Rosalie is fighting to keep herself under control – “I don’t want to talk about them anymore; I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
#37 - Soliloquy
Emmett tries his best to maintain a suitably neutral expression as Rosalie tries her best to wear a hole through her hand-laid ebony hardwood floor while she talks through her increasingly disjointed thoughts and feelings about Forks’ resident new girl, Bella Swan; he's acting as more of a set piece than the sounding board Rosalie requested but, if what his favorite sister really needs right now is the opportunity to pour out all of her fear and frustration so she can finally feel comfortable confronting them, he's more than happy to sit quietly in the background while she does her thing.
#38 - Sojourn
As Edward waxes poetic about his brief sojourn from the family and their vegetarian lifestyle for what she knows to be at least the fifth time in as many days, Rosalie fights the urge to smile at Bella’s increasingly obvious lack of interest in her brother’s self-flagellating tendencies, her estimation of the human rising in time with her every slow sigh and half-hearted hum of agreement.
#39 - Share
“I’m dating you, Bella, and I love you as I’ve never loved anyone before but that doesn’t mean I own you or that I have any sort of pre-existing claim on your time,” she says, gently tugging Bella closer by the loops on her jeans, “I’m just happy you've chosen to share some of that time with me.”
#40 - Solitary
Bella’s gotten used to being on her own, to feeling invisible, moving through her days like a shadow, a solitary ghost overlooked and underestimated, but right now, sitting beside Rosalie on the hood of her car and watching the sunset paint what feels like the entire world gold, Bella has never felt so solid, so seen…and, oh, but it is just as wonderful as it is terrifying.
#41 - Nowhere
“Bella,” two cold fingers press beneath her chin, tilting her head up until brown eyes meet amber, “There is nowhere I would rather be than right here, right now, with you.”
#42 - Neutral
Somewhere along the way – Bella isn’t sure where, exactly, or if there even is one moment when everything changed – Rosalie became more than a neutral bystander to the events of her increasingly complicated life; before either of them even realized it, Rosalie had become not only her one safe place to stand while the outside world continued to spin further and further out of her control but also the only person willing to give her a choice as to how – and with whom – she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
#43 - Nuance
It takes Bella an almost embarrassingly long time to realize that, for all her bravado, all her sarcasm and outright hostility, Rosalie Lillian Hale is a creature of subtle nuance; the glint in her eyes, the set of her shoulders, the slightest shift in the timbre of her voice, these small things scream the truth even when Rosalie herself doesn’t want them to and, though Bella doesn’t know what it means or if it means anything at all, no one else ever seems to notice.
#44 - Near
When Bella returns from her solo hunt – something that has become more and more routine since her turning – all she wants is to be with her family; still, it doesn’t really hit her until after they’ve tucked Renesmee into bed and retired to the sofa in Rosalie’s room (except it isn’t just hers because half her own things are here) like they always do that, when she’d returned from her hunt, she’d wanted to be near her family and that family was Renesmee…and Rosalie.
#45 - Natural
Most people shy away from the cold – it’s natural, instinctual even – but when Rosalie touches her, when her chilly hand entwines with her own, pulling away is the last thing Bella wants to do.
#46 - Horizon
Rosalie drives, Rosalie always drives, pedal pressed flat to the floor as they rocket towards the moonlit horizon at somewhere north of 150 mph; it used to scare her – Bella remembers clutching at the door handle with white knuckles and a scream lodged in the back of her throat – but now she smiles, so thoroughly enraptured by the sight of Rosalie’s (literally) breathless laughter that she barely notices the world flying by.
#47 - Valiant
Rosalie skips across the ground like a stone across a pond, cracks spider webbing their way from chest to cheek as the breath she doesn’t need is expelled in one sharp gasp that leaves nothing but an aching void in its wake; she feels more than sees Bella sprint from the tree line to stand over her, a thick branch clenched tight in her shaking hands, and can’t help but think her the single most stubbornly valiant creature she’s ever met.
#48 - Virtuous
Beaumont Swan is an unusual sort of man – kind and virtuous and, she thinks, a little bit shy – the kind of man Rosalie hasn’t believed in since she was a little girl reading fairytales and dreaming of her own personal Prince Charming; it isn’t until she gets to know him, until she learns the secret he hides behind dark eyes and equally dark suits, that she realizes he’s so unusual because he isn’t really a ‘man’ at all.
#49 - Victory
With Renesmee safe, Bella an unusually docile newborn, and the Volturi gone without so much as a single death left in their wake, their victory over the impossible seems all-encompassing but if that’s true, if they really won, then why does she feel like she loses every time she sees Edward and Bella together?
#50 - Defeat
Controller abandoned by her side, Bella can’t help pouting as the tune of Emmett’s victorious whooping and Alice's delighted laughter fills the room; the only thing that soothes the sting of defeat – and proves reason enough for her to look away from the TV and immediately get lost in amber eyes – is a cool hand carding through her hair paired with a gentle, if somewhat amused, “there’s always next time, darling.”