AN: This was inspired by my own character analysis of Nessie during Renesmee's First Christmas. Therefore, there's a few references from there, but it makes perfect sense if you haven't read it.

Nessie was always going to be traumatised by her ordeals with the Volturi. Even if she hadn't been three and a half months old, she was a child who witnessed a murder which came about as a direct result of her existence, not to mention she had to deal with the idea that her entire family might die, or she might have to leave them all except Jacob. This oneshot takes place a month after the end of Breaking Dawn, from Jasper's point of view.

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A month had passed since our return to the family and we were happily settling back into the blissful routine of the time before Alice's fateful vision. The atmosphere around the house was almost euphoric. The relief after the interminable month of fear made us giddy and the traditional January blues couldn't even attempt to permeate our bubble of joy.

All our guests had now returned to whence they came. Even Nahuel, who had been so fascinated and enthralled by our little Nessie, had returned to the more familiar greenery of the Amazon rainforest after promising that he would return to check up on her, much to Jacob's distaste. And so, life returned to the semblance of normality.

At this precise moment in time, Nessie was holding an impromptu sleepover at the main house, having fallen asleep on the sofa. The girls (Alice, Rosalie, Bella and Esme) had decided to go hunting tonight. Loathe as she was to leave her daughter, Bella accepted that Nessie would not be without both her parents, and so with a little persuasion had agreed to what Alice called 'a sisterly gossip over dinner' which would take up the larger part of the night. Alice had been so infuriated at not being able to see every tiny little incident that passed while we were on our mission to South America, and she was determined to catch up on every nuance of our family's lives, as well as those of the guests we had essentially missed. In particular, she was astounded that she had missed the budding relationship between Kate, one of her favourite female shopping partners, and Garrett.

Though Nessie still preferred blood to human food, she hunted less often than the rest of us, thanks to her youth, her size and in no small part to her newfound love of cranberry sauce. She never hunted at night, either. Despite this, she was very put out at being left behind, and was determined to wait up until her mother returned home. She had flatly refused to return to the little cottage we had built for Bella and Edward. The latter had acquiesced to his daughter's request, as he always did, and after only a few hours, she had succumbed in turn to sleep. Emmett and I were currently engaged in an utterly silent video game war, which made Emmett absolutely hilarious to watch, Carlisle was engaged in paperwork for the hospital, and Edward was watching Renesmee sleep.

"I swear you've got some kind of a fetish for sleeping girls," Emmett whispered. I took advantage of his lapse in concentration and he began colouring the air navy with the impressive collection of swearwords he'd picked up over the decades as those immortal words 'Game Over' appeared on his half of the screen.

"Language!" Edward hissed.

"Hey, I was barely even whispering!" he protested. "And if she sleeps in the same house as you and Bella, then she's not exactly a light sleeper, is she?"

"I thought you had agreed not to mention their sex life," I commented dryly, whilst simultaneously cooling Edward's temper.

"Did I mention anything incriminating?" he asked, wide eyed.

"His loopholes have been getting more and more tenuous over the last couple of months," Edward informed me.

I laughed softly, feeling Emmett's smugness vanish abruptly.

"Whatever," he retorted dismissively. "She's not gonna wake up with a bit of whispering."

It was at that precise moment that three things happened simultaneously.

Nessie, who always slept like a log, suddenly curled up into a warm little ball, and her eyebrows scrunched together.

Edward's face contracted in pain, and he moved softly but urgently to stroke his daughter's long bronze hair.

I gasped, just a little, as a wave of fresh, cold childish fear swept through the room, breaking against my already frozen skin.

"What?" Emmett asked, oblivious.

"She's having a nightmare," Edward breathed.

There was a brief moment of near-silence, save for Nessie's fluttering heartbeat and accelerated breathing, and then she whimpered. The sound was heartbreaking.

"What's it about?" Emmett asked, the video game forgotten.

"What do you think?" Edward asked bitterly. "The Volturi. When they killed Irina. The flames. The smell," he almost choked.

His pain was now escalating along with his daughter's. I tried to siphon his off, but made a concerted effort to leave hers alone. It was difficult, to feel Nessie in pain, and to leave her, but it had to be done.

"Jasper," Edward began, but I shook my head.

"I can't," I told him.

It was his turn to shake his head resignedly. "Oh, I know. If it were anyone but Nessie..."

"Excuse me," Emmett butted in. "Non-mind-reader over here. Why can't you do something, Jazz?"

I sighed. "She needs to feel this. When was the last time she mentioned the Volturi at all?"

Emmett frowned. "I don't know. I don't think she has, has she?"

"Exactly. And correct me if I'm wrong, Edward, but she's probably been trying not to think about it either."

"No, you're right," he agreed.

"So?" Emmett asked, frustrated now.

"So she hasn't been, for want of a better phrase, dealing with it. And she needs to do so."

Nessie clutched her arms closer to herself, hugging her own tiny body. Edward drew away slightly.

"I think she's cold," he said, evidently answering a non-verbal question from Emmett. After a slight pause, he continued. "Humans sort through all their hopes and fears and memories in their sleep. That's what dreaming essentially is. She needs to sort through what she felt that day, what happened, what she thought might happen."

"She probably has the equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder," I added.

"And you know this because?" Emmett asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Both of us have studied psychology," I reminded him.

"Oh yeah. So how do we deal with it?" he asked. "I mean, we obviously don't dream and we haven't gone crazy. Well..."

"Our brains work differently," Edward shrugged, his eyes still fixed on his restless daughter. "We think so many things at the same time, and as far as I can work out, we have a train of thought that does the equivalent to humans' dreaming."

"And Nessie?" Emmett questioned, watching her tremble.

"As in everything, a mixture of the two. Her thoughts are more similar to ours—"

"As are her emotions," I interjected.

"—but she dreams like any other human. Or rather, like anyone else I've heard dreaming, who have mostly been werewolves."

"Oh yeah, you never got to hear Bella's dreams, did you?" Emmett asked rhetorically. He snorted. "Funny that now you could hear her, she can't dream."

"Keep it down," Edward said, ignoring his brother's bluntness.

Emmett, always the clown, mimed zipping his lips shut. Nessie whimpered again, and we all whipped our heads round to watch her. There was a moment of silence.

"What's she dreaming about how?" Emmett whispered.

"The same," Edward replied bleakly. "Though... she's thinking of when Bella told her she would have to leave."

I grimaced as I registered yet another pang of pain from Edward.

"She was so scared," he whispered by way of explanation. "It was the first time anyone had acknowledged to her that things might not go well. She was wondering if... if Bella or I would die, if that was why we were leaving her all alone. And she was wishing Auntie Alice was here, because she always knows what's going on."

I grimaced afresh as Edward literally translated her thoughts, his words unmistakeably childish in their tone and misplaced faith. Alice had sat down with Nessie and explained to her exactly why we had abandoned the rest of the family, so I knew Renesmee understood and had forgiven us both wholeheartedly, but...

"She's living in the past," Edward finished. "She never blamed you. None of us did. It was just a shock for her, such an abrupt change in the only family she's known. The lack of certainty."

I knew he was describing the entire family's feelings, and I trusted him to be telling me the truth, not protecting me from the unpleasant thoughts of others. I knew that for vampires, change was far more frightening than it was for humans, much as they clung to whatever stasis they could achieve. The solidarity of a family was one thing we all relied greatly upon.

Another wave of sorrow submerged me, and I was a little late to alleviate this one.

"She's thinking of when I told her goodbye," Edward said, his voice no stronger than a breath. He bent down to kiss her cascading curls.

"Daddy..."

All three of us blinked in surprise. After so many weeks and months with first Bella, then the werewolves and now Nessie sleeping in our house, we all knew the differences between a sleeping and a waking state. The heartbeat, the breathing pattern, the movement under the eyelids; none of it changed in Renesmee.

"Shh, baby, I'm here," Edward murmured, recovering quickly, as Emmett said, "You have got to be kidding me..."

I grinned. "She's definitely Bella's daughter."

"She sleeptalks!" Emmett crowed, always one to state the obvious.

Edward, however, was frowning. "Never before tonight."

"Would you have noticed?" I asked, a slight smirk twisting my lips as I glanced sidelong at Emmett.

Edward rolled his eyes. "Yes," he said firmly.

"Don't tell Bella that," Emmett advised him, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Daddy... Momma?" Nessie whimpered again, and all smiles stopped together.

"Hush, darling," Edward cooed, and he began to sing the tune he had composed for her only hours after her birth. Nessie quieted as the notes filtered through her sleeping ears and I could feel the relief and contentment growing and swelling in her warm little heart.

The fluttering of her heartbeat and her gentle breathing filled the room for a few minutes. We all watched her, all of us feeling protective of the little girl, and eventually the music faded away. Edward kissed her forehead as he finished her song.

"She alright?" Emmett asked.

"Yes," Edward breathed, the relief clear in his voice.

"It won't last," I said.

"Oh, ye harbinger of doom," Emmett grumbled.

"No, he's right," Edward said. "There's no way she could get the trauma of the last few months out of her system with just one nightmare. She'll be sleeping uneasily for months, I should imagine."

"Are you sure she hasn't had nightmares before?" I pressed.

Edward nodded, but decided not to expand on his answer, which was probably a wise decision with Emmett in the room.

"Perhaps the change in location prompted something," I theorised. "The night that Alice had the vision, she was sleeping there on that sofa."

All three of us reacted to the memory: Emmett shuddered, Edward closed his eyes for a long moment, blocking out the past, and I flinched at the inevitable barrage of remembered horror.

"She woke up and we were gone," I continued. "And Rosalie and Emmett, and Carlisle and Esme were leaving. And the war to end all wars was on the horizon."

"Her world fell apart," Edward agreed.

"Yeah, but you think sleeping on the sofa triggered a nightmare two months later?" Emmett asked sceptically.

"It's not just that," Edward argued softly. "The girls left this evening before Nessie went to sleep. She didn't know where they were. Bella wasn't there to tuck her into bed. She was so determined to stay awake until she got back."

"Yeah, but Bella couldn't have just left without saying goodbye. Not after Alice let it slip that they were going," Emmett argued.

"Have you noticed how Nessie's become almost obsessed with people saying goodbye, now?" I asked. "Every time anyone leaves, even for a minute, she has to wave them goodbye."

Edward grimaced. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice that," he muttered. "It stems from when you and Alice left without saying goodbye. None of us could tell her if or when you were coming back, so now she equates a goodbye to a promise to return."

We all contemplated that, myself feeling a twinge of pointless guilt.

"Poor kid," Emmett murmured.

"Yes," I agreed. Her short life had been dominated by waking nightmares.

"It's not the start in life I would have chosen for my daughter," Edward conceded.

I sighed. "There's nothing we can do about that now."

A pause.

"Best of three?" Emmett offered.

"Alright then," I grinned. "Prepare to lose again."

And so life went on.

Anyone who's actually studied psychology and wants to tell me that I've got it all wrong, feel free!