Ireland – October 6th, 1981

Rosalie Hale let the deer carcass drop to the ground as soon as the last of its blood had made its way down her throat. She looked around the clearing, eyes searching for her companions, making sure that they were all accounted for. Closest to her was her newly found twin brother, Jasper who had joined their coven nearly twenty years ago (give or take a few years) with his wife, Alice Cullen who was not far away from her mate. She watched, fascinated as always, as the little pixie like vampire dropped her own deer carcass to the ground. The deer was three times the size of the 4'11 vampire.

Not too far away from the couple was their leader, Carlisle and his wife, Esme. Her other brother, Edward was not too far away from them either. Which left her own mate who… was bouncing around the clearing from deer to deer as fast as he could.

"Hey! Leave some for the rest of us!" Jasper called out to Emmett.

"You snooze, you lose!" Emmett called back to the blond vampire.

"We'll see about that!" Jasper replied back as he ran towards the closest deer that had yet to flee away from the clearing.

Rosalie couldn't help shaking her head and rolling her eyes at their antics although she did it with a small smile on her lips. Emmett and Rosalie had become quite close to Jasper in the years since he and Alice had joined them. Having him play her twin brother almost every single time they attended high school did help them bond and Emmett was quick to take a liking to the blond vampire as he was with almost everyone. Her mate had always taken his role as big brother quite seriously even though he was technically the youngest out of all of them and the others had simply accepted him as the big brother they never had. They both had taken it upon themselves to show Alice and Jasper the ropes of vegetarian life and although Jasper still struggled with it on a daily basis, they did everything to make him feel welcomed as much as they could and did not judge him when he slipped up. After all, who were they all to judge when most of them struggled with human blood as much as he did. Well, everyone except for Carlisle.

Catching the scent of a human close by as the wind shifted caused Rosalie to be brought back to reality. A quick glance towards her family and she could tell that they had noticed too. Jasper had immediately gone still and stopped breathing, fighting the urge to not go after the human who had wondered further in the woods than most would not.

"Who…?" Emmett began to ask as he came to stand next to Jasper just in case.

There was only one pair of footsteps so they were alone.

Except they weren't…

"Do you hear that?" Rosalie asked to no one in particular.

She just wanted to make sure that she wasn't hearing things.

"A baby," Esme confirmed that she had heard it too.

A quick glance around the clearing they stood in, surrounded by the carcasses of their hunt, and Rosalie knew that she and Esme were not the only ones to hear the sound of a crying baby. Rosalie frowned while most of her family looked confused. Alice had the same distant look she did every time she was in a vision and Edward was clearly concentrated on the human's thoughts.

"Who would bring a baby this deep into the woods?" Emmett voiced what everyone had been thinking at that exact moment.

Everyone had glanced at Emmett, asking themselves the same question before turning to Edward who was frowning. Rosalie watched as her brother quickly turned to looking horrified at what he heard and before he could even voice what he had heard, Rosalie was off running towards the source of the scent.

She barely registered her husband calling after her or her family running after her.

By the time he and the rest of their family had reached her, she was angrily watching from the safety of the trees surrounding a small clearing a man putting down a crying bundle of blankets onto the ground. He nervously glanced around him before he stood up, giving the bundle of blankets a last look of disgust, he left the clearing without a second glance. Rosalie waited until the man was far away enough that she could no longer hear his heartbeat many he was well out of ear shot for his human ears.

She took a step forwards towards the crying bundle when her husband stopped her.

"Rose, it's probably a changeling," he said.

Rosalie glared at her husband, "We're in the 20th century. Who still believes leaving a sickly baby out in the woods overnight will give you a healthy one?" She demanded.

Both turned to their adoptive father figure who looked disturbed as he stared at the bundle of blankets.

He shook his head to bring him back to reality before looking back at them, "The heartbeat is strong and the lungs seem to be fully developed as are every other organ. I don't think this is a changeling," he said.

"The human is out of range," Edward stated.

They had barely been standing there for a minute and the human was already out of range for Edward?

"He was running away as fast as he could to be back before anyone noticed that he was gone," the mindreader replied to her thought.

Rosalie frowned before shrugging her husband off of her. Within a blink of an eye she was next to the bundle of blankets, crouching down and gently picking it up into her arms. She was already slowly rocking side to side and hushing the baby by the time Esme was by her side. Rosalie pulled back the blanket away from the baby's face only to be met with what had to be the most beautiful blond curls she had ever seen.

"Carlisle, the baby is barely a day old," Esme said, looking back at her husband who was standing by the tree line with the rest of their family.

He was by their side in an instant. He quickly examined the baby in Rosalie's arms, pushing the blanket a little further open as he did. He looked for any visible injuries before leaning down and placing an ear on the baby's chest, listening for anything that would seem abnormal. He quickly stood straight, frowning, before he finally counted all the fingers and toes.

Everything was there.

There was virtually nothing wrong with the baby.

"It's a perfect healthy baby girl," he finally announced, "Well, she's probably starving, but that's about it. I can't see or imagine why the man would just leave her here. If anything would kill her, it would be starvation."

"He does this every time one of his wives gives birth to a girl," Edward replied. "He will keep the sons, but will bring the daughters here to die. He can't bring himself to… kill them himself so he just leaves them here to starve to death. Their bodies either decompose here or an animal will eat whatever is left… Either way, each time he comes back, there is no trace of the others that came before."

"He couldn't care less what happened to the bodies," Emmett stated, angrily, already knowing the answer.

Edward simply nodded.

"How many others have been brought here to face faith, Edward?" Esme asked, knowing full well that she was not ready for the answer.

"He's had three wives so far and there's been over twenty births…" he hesitated to continue.

Esme brought her hands to her mouth, "How many sons does the man have?" She asked as she tried blinking away the tears that were forming in her eyes. Tears that would never fall anyways.

Alice gulped before replying herself, "He has nine sons."

Esme let out a painful cry as she covered the rest of her face with her hands before hiding in her husband's chest as he brought her in for a comforting hug. Esme who had lost her own child to sickness began to sob for all the lives that had been lost over the simple fact that they had been born the wrong gender.

Rosalie barely registered Jasper bringing Alice into a comforting hug as well. She barely registered the rage that graced his delicate features. She barely registered her own mate's presence next to her as she glanced down, horrified at what could have been, towards the baby who was suckling hungrily on her knuckle that she had absentmindedly offered.

How many graves were they currently standing on? She asked herself as she looked at the small being in her arms. She leaned against her mate who brought an arm around, he squeezed her to comfort her before rubbing her arm as she fought the tears forming in her eyes that would never fall.

"So… what do we do now?" Emmett asked after a long moment of silence, "We can't exactly bring her back with us."

"We can't just leave her here to die either," Esme quickly replied as she pulled away from her husband.

"We can always just find an orphanage to drop her off at or we can call Child Protection Services and let them handle it," Edward suggested.

"The hospital would be too suspicious if we just drop her off there," Carlisle stated.

"She's young enough that she will probably be adopted right away by a nice loving couple," Jasper stated.

Rosalie gently caressed the baby's face, "No," she said.

"No?" Everyone repeated at the same.

"What else do you want us to do?" Emmett asked incredulously, "Raise her?"

Rosalie looked up at her mate, "I mean… we could…" she said, softly.

Emmett quickly looked at his wife as if she had grown a second head, "You can't be serious, Rose!" He exclaimed as he brought her to face him.

"Why not?" She asked, "You know I've always dreamed of having a family," she stated, "All I ever wanted was to get married and have children. I know we're happily married, but I lost the chance to have children the day I was turned and you know all I have wanted to do for the past 40 years was to be able to give you children. To give you a legacy to pass down for generations to come" She gestured towards the baby, "I know it's not the same, but this is our chance, Em."

He grabbed his wife by the shoulders, wanting to knock some sense into her as he said, "Rose, we're vampires. She's human. You know very well that human children mean scraped knees and paper cuts and banging heads on the corner of furniture which could all result in blood." Rose glanced down at the now sleeping baby as Emmett continued, "Our main food source. Do you really think you could resist the temptation every. Single. Time?"

She looked up at him, locked eyes with him as she answered, "For her? I would."