A/N: Paige is the devil on my shoulder. Don't worry, I'm working on other updates, yadda yadda.

So I, naturally, thought about that tried and true AU where Bella's the vampire with the Cullens instead, but never gave it actual consideration until firenubs. So. Thank firenubs.

Here's that AU. And I'm letting you know now, okay, listen. Rosalie hasn't been raped like a lot of human AUs for her. But I'm warning you about abuse/neglect from her parents that could be upsetting. So it's kind of how I feel it could've gone down with her family in this time period with Rose moving to Forks after fall in senior year.

So yeah here's a Rose who hasn't had decades to perfect her composure and a Bella with decades of issues and struggling with some stuff. I dunno, man. I got a lot of messages about Black Star!Bella helping people with some issues and I hope Errant Hearts!Rose helps someone too. We'll have plenty of laughs along the way. Slow burny.

Life was close to reaching its tedious phase for her. The period of being undead where she felt dead inside and ached to feel alive. Bella had thought about getting lost somewhere for a year or twenty, but in the end, weakness won out.

Esme's understanding smile held such quiet sadness that guilt kept her from even sitting down for a whole week.

Edward spent more time in his room.

Jasper's back was so straight it seemed like it might break.

And if Carlisle's sad glances weren't enough, Emmett and Alice fighting over time with her made her feel the need to run.

But then, as if Alice read her despite all her indecision, a smaller hand would find hers and ever bright eyes held something like fear.

And so Bella again played the role of a Cullen. High school made her significantly more antsy than college, but less people asked questions about where she was.

A definite boon when she spent most of the summer in the mountains.

A curse when she considered never going back.

Because the same few people checking on her and the one person calling her every day dragged her deep into the chains of affection.

The sound of someone approaching through the trees made her stiffen and it took conscious effort to relax her shoulders.

Sure enough, they crashed into her back hard enough to make her stumble and arms encircled her waist. She watched a small rock she'd accidentally kicked go over the edge of the cliff. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." Alice squeezed her, and then her voice was quieter. "If you want to go when we move this time, I won't try to stop you."

Resignation pulled a tired sigh from her lungs. "You know I can't. I'm...I—"

"You're trapped with us."

She felt her eye twitch. "That's not what I was going to say."

"It's what you feel."

"No. Before, yes. Now, not so much."

"I see the future, Bella. I'd call you before something happened."

She pulled out of Alice's embrace and spun to look at her, crossing her arms as she did. "And have you alert all day every day? And if something slipped by you? The future isn't definite."

"Don't throw my words back at me." A scowl took over Alice's face even as she copied Bella's stance. "Besides, I've been getting restless too."

A tightness came to Bella's jaw.

Alice noticed. Her grip in her own arms loosened and her lips parted, but she didn't question what exactly Bella wanted to do. "It would be okay."

"I don't trust the Volturi. Finding out I was a shield was one thing. But they're due to pop up, I'm sure, and I doubt it'd go over well that I can extend it now."

As if they were talking about anything else, Alice waved her hand and rolled her eyes. "The Volturi don't trust the Volturi. I've known you for a lifetime, Bella. You can just say you don't trust yourself."

"Well now, who likes admitting their shortcomings?"

Alice raised an eyebrow like Bella had. And then they said Edward's name at the same time and dissolved into laughter.

It was a few minutes before they sobered up, but that just turned into Alice swaying to a song in her head, or perhaps no song at all, and Bella taking her hand to spin her.

"Hey, Bella?"

A hum was her answer as she dipped Alice and paused to stare down at her.

Alice tucked some of Bella's hair behind her ear. "You know how the future isn't definite?"

"Of course."

"My visions are weird lately. Shifting. Full of black spots. The definite thing is that I'm not seeing our casual sex anymore."

Gold eyes dropped lower than Alice's face for a minute. She frowned. "I thought the future wasn't definite."

"Bella, shut up for two seconds."

"How about one second?"

"Anyway," Alice rolled her eyes, "I am having a definite feeling. There's some change coming, and it's good."

"I think you should stop using the word 'definite.' I'm not sure you know what it means."

"I can't wait for the day you find your mate and they put you in your place."

"Do you think she'll be the type to tape my mouth shut or just pretend I'm not speaking at all?"

"Hopefully she pushes you off a cliff. Let go of me."

Bella dropped her and, as Alice spun to land on her feet and scowl, a small smile came to tired lips born of decades of affection and hopelessness.

Rusty didn't begin to describe how she felt about pretending to be human. After all, it must've been...a while. Time was something she avoided thinking about. Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling as she adjusted her sleeves. "Are we still not talking?"

"I'm afraid not," Edward answered instead as he breezed into the living room. He fixed her collar. "She'll come around."

"I will not!"

Esme entered with a sigh even as Bella looked at the ceiling once more. "Bella, dear, we're all unreasonable at times. And while we expected to learn it at some point, I doubt anyone expected you to burst into the house and exclaim that you and the police chief have the same last name and ask how cool that was."

"Well!"

Emmett strolled on in and by with a shrug of his shoulders. His voice drifted from the front door, "I thought it was cool, Boo."

A childish huff left Bella and Esme nearly rolled her own eyes as she fixed Bella's hair. "Yes, well, be that as it may, Alice takes some things very seriously and knowing you so long and being so," she cleared her throat, "close puts her in a particular place."

"Thank you," Bella muttered.

Two fingers pinched the shoulder of Edward's jacket tightly to pull him closer, and Esme had to give him a look, but she moved him to Bella's side. "Now, I need you two to look out for each other. Shield to keep Edward sane and mutual brooding to keep Bella from slipping up."

It was a little thing, a small way of saying "I love you" when Bella struggled with emotional depth even still. And so she fully understood the meaning of Esme not saying "again," and how it expressed once more she didn't blame her for the last move. Even though Bella shouldn't have let her emotions get the best of her to the point of causing such a scene.

She didn't regret it, though. And she would never apologize for it.

"I do not brood, Esme." Edward's hands battled hers in the fight of fixing his hair.

Bella hummed. "No, no of course not. You simply battle melancholy."

"Heroically and gorgeously!"

A small smile pulled at Bella's lips while Edward crossed his arms and Esme sighed.

Vague curiosity gave way to insatiable interest in an exact, definable moment.

Bella couldn't tell you the first time she saw her, she only remembered thinking she was as pretty as she was tired. The kind of tired in your bones.

She couldn't remember the first thing she said to her. It was probably some regular greeting that was met by a glance and rolling eyes.

She definitely didn't remember what it was the girl had done during her second attempt of saying hello other than some act of nonchalance. Although, it apparently made her smile because Jasper commented on it and being able to detect her emotions.

What she did remember was an interval no longer than ten seconds.

Standard, drab cafeteria with useless chattering. She'd been on her way to get a cookie from the line as a pretense for trying again to make a conversation when some dumb kid zipped in front of her. Maybe if he'd been closer, he would've heard the beginning of the growl in her chest, but he wasn't. And he was an idiot. An idiot who already made shoulders tense with his sudden arrival and worsened his mistake by touching the girl's ass "on accident."

In that moment, Rosalie Hale rendered a vampire addicted.

Her heart screamed rage. The very same type that twisted her face like a siren forgetting her pretty mask as she spun. While her fist came around, he backed up, but she stepped into it. She didn't yell or curse him. The force of the hit rocked his head back and the smallest grunt of effort left her. Even as he stumbled and clutched his face, her hand still fisted as if she considered hitting him again. The line between her pale eyebrows continued to dare him to breathe the same air as her.

He fled.

Bella moved into the spot behind her like she'd intended and looked across the cafeteria when Edward hissed at her to blink.

She blinked.

At the end of the line, just as the girl paid and turned to walk away, she remembered herself. "You're magnificent."

Rosalie Hale rubbed one of her red knuckles across her jaw and looked Bella up and down.

The breath in her chest froze under the weight of possibility, stalled with the hope of being genuinely addressed for the first time.

"You're alright. I guess."

Bella's lips formed a grin while she watched her walk away.

"No."

It was little more than a breath and a glance in a hallway teeming with students, but Bella felt it. She gave Rosalie a single nod and took a sharp turn to go about her business. Whether Rosalie knew it or not, there was a promise in that syllable.

And Bella didn't mind waiting.

A week later, there wasn't even a syllable. No words, no curt look, no roll of blue eyes, no dramatic hair flip that seemed almost playful sometimes.

Nothing.

Bella turned her pen over and over in the one class they shared, over and over. Her gaze was glued to a storm trapped by skin. Normally steady hands trembled just a little and the bags contrasting those light eyes were a few shades darker and a touch bigger.

She'd resolved to keep to herself and do her best to ignore the tight anxiety in her chest. However, the things she couldn't help noticing combined with Alice shoving a bag of candy into her locker with a simple, "I don't know, just trust me," left her unsettled. Maybe she would get lost after school and skip Monday. Okay, maybe Monday and Tuesday.

Could she just disappear? Was it too late for that?

"Hey."

Intelligent, composed, fully adjusted to life through many, many years of trials, Isabella Swan leaned back to look around the door of her locker. "Me?"

A pale eyebrow arched. "Who else harasses me all the time?"

"I'm not interested in harassing you." Dimly, Bella became aware that her hand was still grasping a textbook in her locker, but she couldn't bring herself to do more than breathe and blink like a regular person. Well, hopefully she resembled a normal person.

Rosalie's arms crossed as she leaned against the neighboring lockers. Apparently she was big on eye contact because hers was unwavering. "Well then, what are you interested in?"

Instead of speaking, because speaking would mean honesty, and honesty would mean making an ass of herself, Bella slapped her hand down onto the bag in her locker and tore it without looking away from the sharpest eyes she'd ever seen. She produced an item between them. "Lollipop?"

She could never make fun of Edward's social skills again after this.

Some of the ice in Rosalie's gaze melted. It was a thin layer, maybe the thinnest one, but her shoulders did relax. She studied the candy even as she reached out and took it, spinning it between her fingers. "Bubblegum. My favorite flavor. I was—I was actually coming to ask if you had a sucker. You know, as payment for bothering me. But damn, what are the odds?" Her gaze drifted back up to Bella as if she had actual suspicions about the odds.

And Bella almost made a crack about life with a psychic, so she did the only logical thing she could do as a vampire masquerading as a human. She snatched the whole bag, glanced at it, then shoved it back in and looked at curious eyes. "Apparently the odds of a fool reaching in and giving you the right flavor is one in seven."

Rosalie popped it into her mouth and pushed the trash into Bella's hand. As if she owned it, she opened Bella's locker farther and peeked inside. She started picking out a few flavors while Bella scooted to the side to give her better clearance. "That one of your things? Guessing how much of something is in a container?"

Of course she avoided a slip up with another one. Of course. How in the hell would she know how many of each flavor were in the bag in two seconds? "I like...numbers."

But Rosalie just let out a small hum like she wasn't being strange and deposited her pickings into her own backpack. Then her eyes roved over Bella and her torn jeans and her shirt missing the second button going down that she only now felt self-conscious about. "I'm not so sure about the fool part. A hoodlum, maybe."

"A rogue?"

"Maybe."

"If I'm a rogue, you're a villain. No, wait. A bully."

She made a noise in the back of her throat. "I am not a bully."

"You just requisitioned my fucking candy."

"No, I just took what I was owed."

"Bully."

"Strange, interesting person."

Bella scoffed. "I'm not a person."

"Me either."

The way she'd said it was quieter, distant. It held some meaning that Bella hoped to discover.

She only realized Rosalie called her interesting once she was listening to Bach in Edward's car on the drive home.

No one talked to her that day.

Well, people talked at her, but no one talked to her. It was a distinct difference. Distinct, and almost painful.

Empty chatter surrounded Rosalie and dead words beat in her heart. The ones at her table might as well have been faceless.

Or maybe she was the faceless one. The one without an identity or purpose.

Pain pricked at her palms and a glance told her she'd started clenching her fists atop her thighs so hard they shook.

Without thought, against her will, her eyes moved across the cafeteria to a specific spot.

The one person who spoke to her—with her—was currently oblivious to her existence. Not that Rosalie blamed her. Oh, no, why would she?

Alice Cullen and her endlessly upbeat personality apparently never failed to make the grump known as Isabella Swan react. It wasn't just a small smile or the occasional big one, but as if some part of her shifted.

Who preferred an emotionally unstable wreck over that?

She felt hot even though winter was in full swing in this frozen hellhole. So she didn't hesitate to leave her jacket on her chair and certainly didn't give a thought to her backpack.

Her feet carried her out the doors and a fierce wind robbed her of breath, but she didn't care. Blonde hair whipped around, in and out of her eyesight as she tried not to think. Rows and rows of cars went by and she heard the ghost of other students laughing with their friends before and after school.

Fingers Rosalie could hardly feel fumbled for her keys. The sound of her car unlocking was like home as she fell into the passenger seat to fight to open her glove compartment and rummage in it.

Then she was leaning against the door she ached to repaint. She couldn't get her thumb to operate her lighter. The one time she did, after more than a dozen attempts, a gust of winter swept by that she couldn't have done anything to protect against.

Her head fell back and bounced off her car as she sighed, the air rattling around in her lungs as her body trembled.

Nothing was fair in life.

This, she knew.

But, damn, there was something wrong with all the Cullens, and not the way her father said.

No, it was in their eyes and smiles and their beauty that seemed the same even though they were different. There was something off in their movements sometimes, too, and Bella wasn't just cold in a cold town.

She was fucking freezing.

But maybe she just had cold as shit hands.

Rosalie doubted it.

Doubted it the same way she doubted Bella's very words. Her intentions didn't make sense except for a girl seeing a new pretty thing she wanted to have fun with. And, somehow, Rosalie knew that wasn't it. Lies came out of Bella Swan's mouth and there was something between her and Alice Cullen, but there was also a certain honesty that Rosalie could feel. It lurked in golden eyes that checked her movements rather than ogled her, it whispered in the wake of Bella leaving her alone when her face screamed a need for peace.

The insistent chatter of her classmates that the Cullens just didn't talk to anyone at all resurfaced as she became convinced her back had frozen against her car.

Maybe Rosalie was just making more of it than there was to occupy her time.

Maybe she was growing desperate.

Tired.

Ice pulled the lighter from her hand and she opened her eyes to see none other than Bella Swan holding her fingers out for the cigarette. She surrendered it. Watched Bella tuck it between her lips and focus on lighting it.

One, two, three, four tries.

Rosalie accepted it and closed her eyes during a drag that had been long overdue. A jacket started settling over her shoulders. Blue met gold closer than ever and she took the smallest step forward so the jacket could surround her and noted that Bella didn't blink while fixing her collar. This soft interest—this concern—had only been visible in Bella's gaze once before, but Rosalie didn't like thinking about that day.

So she instead noted that the jacket protected against the cold very well. However, it wasn't warm at all. In fact, it was as if she'd left it near a window and only just picked it up as opposed to being given it by someone who had been wearing it all day.

Yet another thing to add to her list titled, I Think About Bella Swan Too Much But It's Valid, Maybe.

Rosalie turned her head so she didn't just blow smoke straight into Bella and the wind took it greedily, like an addict trying to consume the whole cigarette in one go. "This the part where I fall to my knees and thank you or something?"

Her poker face stayed in place even though she internally screamed. It was entirely possible that someone could be interested in her as a person. She didn't have to lash out.

But Bella's expression didn't change. "I would probably run away if you did that."

"Oh, good. Now I know how to make you go away."

"Do you want me to go away?"

"Maybe. Maybe later."

"Maybe now?"

"Sure. Get lost."

The beginning of a grin came to Bella's face.

Feeling her own lips twitch, Rosalie turned her head for another drag. She arched an eyebrow when she looked at Bella again. "Weird. You're still here."

The bell rang throughout the school.

"I'm bad at listening."

"Not from my experience."

And then Rosalie dropped all expression from her face. She hadn't meant to engage. Engaging led to repeat encounters. Then again, Bella kept approaching her regardless of how little or how much she accidentally engaged.

No, it didn't matter. She flicked the butt of her cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. Her lips parted, but "fuck off" for some reason felt just a little extreme for once.

"I don't want you to freeze out here, so is there a chance I can walk you back inside in total silence and let you be? But with peace of mind for myself?"

She didn't look up. She didn't want to find out what was in gold eyes this time.

The quality of Bella Swan that drew her in the most, pissed her off the most, finally registered in her mind.

She was understanding.

Rosalie stuffed her hands into the pockets of the jacket with a barely there shrug and started back toward the building. "Look, you can do what you want as long as you don't bother me."

Bella did as promised, not even a hum coming from her.

Still, Rosalie could almost hear her quipping something like, "So you admit I'm not a bother."