A/N: Wow, you guys don't waste any time. You upheld your end of the bargain, so here's mine. Feel free to cry, I did while writing it.

Warning: emotions, language

"Those are the most hateful words in the English language," she complained as she stepped further into the room. She almost sat down on the bed, but after a brief moment of hesitation - still incredulous Aro had put a bed in here, probably not for the purpose of sleeping - she chose to sit on the chaise instead. Giving him a wide berth as if he would jump out and bite her at any moment, she perched on the edge of the couch, wrapping her arms around herself protectively.

"Renesmee-"

"Look, I'm sorry," she blurted out, effectively cutting him off. Whatever he was going to say, she didn't want to hear it. "I shouldn't have yelled at you earlier. Whatever Aro wants with Peanut, it's not your fault. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

He stared at her for a moment, astonishment shining in his eyes. "You have nothing to apologize for. I'm the one who is sorry. I didn't know how to react earlier, but I need you to know I agree with you."

He pushed off the desk, taking a few steps closer to her and shoving his hands into his pockets in an uncharacteristic display of insecurity. "I have no intention of letting Aro get his way, and as soon as I am capable, I will discuss the situation in its entirety with him. This is our child, and we are the only ones that get a say in how they're raised."

She exhaled heavily, nodding at his words. It just felt nice to know they were on the same page after all. "Maybe if I hadn't jumped down your throat earlier, you could've told me that. Sometimes I just… yell first and ask questions later." She winced, curling in on herself. "Sorry."

He shook his head at her and flashed her an uncomfortable smile. The easiest part was out of the way. Now came the real challenge. Talking about what happened between them back in May.

He went back to her nearly immediately after his talk with Demetri. He had become a pro at vanishing right from under everyone's noses in the past months. Usually they were all so busy with this hobby or that one that they never noticed he wasn't around. After all, it wasn't always business in Volterra. They had more downtime than they let on.

It took hours of nonstop running to get back to her hotel room, but she was still there, half-asleep on the bed in the wee hours of the morning, when he got back in. He almost felt bad for waking her, but the hours of alone time on the way there had given him time to think and his mind was made up. He had to do something about this, no matter how much he didn't like it.

"Do you love her?" Demetri had asked. And God, did he dread the answer to that question, as immediate as it was. It had taken forever for him to admit it to himself - he wasn't even ready to say it out loud to her, let alone Demetri. But he did. He does. And that's why what Demetri said next scared the shit out of him.

"You're risking her life for nothing."

And he was right. Alec was taking unnecessary risks with Renesmee's health and happiness and for completely selfish reasons. He couldn't give her what she needed, the life she deserved. Being with a man sworn to serve another for his eternal life was no life for her. She needed someone who could make her top priority, not someone who could end it at a moment's notice if his master told him to.

And there was the Other Thing. The thing that was merely gossip, a rumor spread around the halls of Volterra, with no proof to back it up. It was a ghost story told around the flicker of a campfire, mere speculation since none of the guard is old enough to corroborate. That Aro would go so far as to kill his own sister if she got in the way of their coven's power.

He couldn't risk Renesmee sharing that fate.

"Alec?" she called out groggily as she sat up in bed. The window on the other side of the room illuminated her silhouette, the rising sun coming in through the parted curtains. "What are you doing back so soon?"

After a few moments, he loosened his tongue, his teeth aching from grinding them together so hard. Simply put, he stated, "We can't do this anymore."

Renesmee all but fell out of the bed in her haste to stand up, the sheets trailing behind her as she stepped closer to him. He could still see the love bites he had left on her neck earlier, reminding him that hours before, there had been an entirely different situation going down in this room.

"What are you talking about?" Her voice was still clouded with sleep as she stumbled towards him, but he silenced her with a single hand.

He shut his eyes tight, strengthening his resolve. "Us. This. It's over, Renesmee." When he opened his eyes again, he was met with hers, wide and disbelieving.

"N-No it's not." She shook her head vehemently, chewing on her bottom lip in her anxiety. When he just stared at her blankly, she asked, "What happened? Why...why are you doing this?"

He could hear the tears she was fighting back clog her voice. Her heart beat erratically, her breathing coming out in uneven gasps. He hated this, all of it. He wished things could be different. That they lived in a version of their world where they could be together without repercussions, without worry, without pain. But that was a fantasy, a dream that had no place in his head.

He had to be strong. Reserved. Unfeeling.

Same old Alec.

"Nothing happened. I just," - irony is a bitch - "came to my senses. We can't keep doing this. Things need to change."

She nodded immediately, holding onto his words for dear life. Completely misinterpreting his meaning. "Okay. We stop hiding, I don't care. Just… please don't do what I think you're trying to." She grasped his hand, trying to intertwine their fingers, but he pulled back. She reeled like he had slapped her.

"I'm not talking about telling our families." A mask slipped over his face, shutting down any semblance of emotion on the outside, but inside, he was raging. His heart and his mind were at war, and only one of them was going to win. And giving in to his heart had never brought him anything but pain. Feelings aren't reliable, logic is.

"I'm going back to Volterra. You won't see me again. Goodbye, Renesmee." He turned around to walk out, leave her behind for good, but she called out to him one last time.

"Alec, why are you doing this?" Her voice cracked, and he knew without turning around that the tears she had been holding back had finally broken through the dam.

"I can't give you what you need, Renesmee. I'm not… good for you."

And then, he walked out, the sounds of her cries wrecking him more than he could ever destroy himself.

They stared at each other for what felt like forever, neither of them knowing what to say to the other one. A small piece of the puzzle had been put into place, but a much bigger chunk was still missing, and it was harder to fit. They started to speak at the same time.

"I appreciate-"

"That's not all I wanted to say."

"Oh," she snapped her mouth closed, tucking her hands tightly between her legs. She had never had such a hard time looking at him. "What else did you want to talk about?"

"May."

"No," she blatantly refused. She stood up, shaking her head as she walked away from him. She couldn't talk about this right now. They had just made up from their previous fight. She didn't need to bring up those memories. "I'm not talking about it."

"Renesmee, we have to. We can't keep ignoring this...this thing between us." He motioned to the two of them, like there was a physical entity separating them from each other.

She snapped, whirling around on him in a rage. "This 'thing?' You mean the thing you put there? You, not me. If you didn't want us to have problems, then why did you do it? Huh?" It had plagued her for too long. Maybe he was right, maybe they did need to talk. Then they could finally clear the air, let go of the baggage holding them to each other, and focus on being good parents.

"I didn't think I would ever see you again!" He threw his hands up in frustration.

"Yes, that part of your speech I remember quite well. But that doesn't tell me why you did it, does it?" She stared him down, crossing her arms over her chest. "So go on."

He sighed, running his hands down his face. "I don't do well with emotions."

"I know, you're allergic to every human emotion on the spectrum, we're past that. I want an answer, I deserve that much."

"Because Demetri said something that scared the shit out of me, okay!" His control had officially vanished. A different form of Alec had taken the usually reserved one's place. This one was manic, panicked, desperate. He was tired of lying and hiding.

She stopped then, her arms dropping to her sides as she stared at him in confusion. "Demetri? What could he possibly have said to make you change your mind about us so quickly?"

Clasping both hands behind his head, he stared at the floor in turmoil. This wasn't going the way he thought it would in his head. He had wanted to be level-headed, strong, but this wasn't about logic anymore. This was about feelings through and through.

"You don't know what being in the Volturi is like. There are rumors…" He sighed, shaking his head. "If Aro had caught wind of this before, if he considered you a distraction… He could have…"

Like a lightbulb had finally gone off over her head after all this time, she took a shaky breath and nodded as she stared at a blank spot on the wall. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "You left because you wanted to protect me. From Aro." Every fight they had had recently could be traced back to that man.

He nodded reluctantly, finally looking up at her. Pain was written all over his face, etched into the set of his brows and the purse of his lips. "I couldn't take the chance with you. What I felt for you was too strong."

Feel.

Her head turned to face him faster than the crack of a whip. "Oh, do you wanna talk about feelings now?" Renesmee stepped closer to him, her hands balling into fists. She felt her face heat up from the anger coursing through her veins. How could he have the audacity…

"No, let's talk about how I felt when you left. When you fed me some bullshit line about not being good for me and walked out the door like I never mattered to you. How you left me crumpled on the floor of my hotel room like some piece of paper that you threw away like garbage. How I spent months wondering what I possibly could have done to make you turn on me so quickly. You wanted to protect me from Aro, but no one was around to protect me from you."

He gaped at her, every word cutting into him like a knife. Theoretically, it might be cathartic to let the truth out, but who ever really wants to hear it?

"I spent all of my days trying to forget the sound of your voice, the way you used to touch me, even your goddamn name. You haunted me in my dreams and every waking moment. I nearly scrubbed my skin raw in the shower just trying to find a piece of me you had never touched. And after all this time, you're telling me that you left me because you couldn't bear to lose me."

"Essentially." It was a weak response, and he knew it. But he couldn't think of any eloquent way to express how much she was tearing him apart right now. To know how she had struggled after what he did… He truly felt like the worst of the worst.

Hot tears burned her vision as she stared him down. Did he have nothing to say for himself? For all the things he had put her through? All the fight left her body, leaving her numb.

"That should have been my choice."

Shaking his head, he huffed out a bitter laugh. "You're so stubborn, Renesmee. I knew how that would go down."

"Did that mean I didn't deserve to know?" She raged. "Dammit, Alec!"

That was the first time she had said his name out loud in months. It had finally relinquished the grip it had on her vocal chords, clawing its way out of her throat. It felt like resolution, to finally be able to say it aloud, even if it was in anger.

"I was in love with you," her voice broke, coming out in a choked gurgle. After all this time, it felt like a burden lifted off her shoulders, even as the tears started coming down faster. "God help me, I think I still am."

Alec took a deep, shuddering breath, his heart breaking entirely and piecing itself back together in the same moment. In an instant, he was in front of her, cradling her face in his hands and trying to wipe the tears away even as more kept falling. Even like this, with her hair wet from a shower and her face red from anger with tears spilling from her eyes, he could never see anything but beauty. She persevered even after everything he had put her through. She was stronger than him a million times over, strong enough to admit her feelings and strong enough to be vulnerable in front of the person she cared about.

He may be the strongest vampire in the world - with his gift anyway - but she has the strongest character he's ever had the pleasure to witness.

No longer able to resist the pull between them, he leaned down and met her lips. It was like riding a bicycle, the way they fell into the kiss so naturally. The salt of her tears slipped through the cracks of their lips, but they didn't care. Renesmee's hands clenched the fabric of his shirt, holding herself as close to him as possible. After a few moments, he finally let her take a breath, wrapping his arms around her body.

"I am so sorry," He whispered in her ear, eyes shut tightly. "I hated myself for hurting you, I still do. I will do anything I can to make it right."

She nodded against his chest, her tears finally slowing to a trickle. "One step at a time."

One step at a time. For now, they're right where they need to be.

A/N: Is waiting 17 chapters for a kiss too long? lol