I have Renesmee referring to Edward and Bella by their first names for a few reasons. First off, Bella refers to her biological parents by their names in her head, if not to their faces. In fact, in the beginning of Twilight it is difficult for Bella to remember to call Charlie “Dad”. I don’t suppose that Bella would ask that Renesmee call her “mom” when Bella herself does not like calling her parents “Mom and Dad”. Secondly, Edward calls Carlisle and Esme by their given names as well (most of the time; he calls Esme “mom” once). Third, I think that it would be conspicuous for Renesmee to be seen calling Edward and Bella her parents: physically, Renesmee may actually be older than them at this point (that depends on what Stephenie Meyer calls physical maturity- that can be anything between sixteen and twenty-one). Hope that answers everybody’s questions…

…

The bed was colder than usual to begin with and then there was a draft.

Were I not so horribly tired, I would have screamed. I pried one eye open and growled in the direction of whoever had pulled down my covers .

“Wakey-wakey!” It was Alice, of course, standing next to my decadent dorm room bed. Nobody else would dare to be so cheery at…

“Five-thirty in the morning!”

Alice looked completely unruffled. “Exactly. I’m supposed to get you up. Jacob’s in the shower- he went for a run earlier and asked me to give you this before it got too cold.” She was holding out a Venti-sized Starbucks cup that, I could tell, contained something very unlike coffee. That improved my mood a bit- I hadn’t been looking forward to having to eat in the cafeteria this morning due to the time that it would take to inconspicuously travel the distance to a place to hunt.

I sniffed at the cup. “Black bear?”

“Mmhmm. Don’t ask me how he got it into the cup- I don’t know and I don’t really want to know.” She handed me the cup and I tipped it backwards, draining it in one setting. “Well. I guess you can go back to sleep if you really must… but your parents want to see you before class… and they have their first class at eight, so…”

“We don’t have to be anywhere until ten!”

She gave me a withering look. “We need to be seen practicing, too. Just because you have the best high C in the world doesn’t mean that you don’t need to be seen working for it.”

I looked at the ceiling and prayed for patience- Alice was about a head shorter than I, but she was still a lot stronger and faster. It wouldn’t be a good idea to try to jump her. “So you want me to get up.” I swung my legs out of the bed.

“Yay! Don’t forget to take a shower!”

She danced out of the room as I hissed at her.

It’s before six. Nobody’s even in the girls’ showers now- or at least I can’t hear anybody in there. Screw showering. As important as hygiene may be to humans, a vampire’s body seldom needs to be cleaned: I, as a half-vampire, was lucky enough to only really need a shower when I got dirt or blood all over me.

I rose and made the bed at a only-slightly-faster-than-human speed and dressed in the outfit that Alice had laid out on my desk chair; a sheer gold top over a beige tank top and a pair of too-nice jeans; the sort that Bella would feel the need to fray a bit before wearing them. I was not so prejudiced against expensive clothing, but I did have to admit that the jeans wouldn’t have turned heads at an opera matinee.

The door to our room opened as I was disposing of the Starbucks cup; Jake entered the room wearing only his towel around his waist.

“Well, if that’s not distracting…”

“Good morning to you, too,” he chuckled.

“Huh. I don’t like how that towel looks on you. Take it off.”

He raised an eyebrow and kissed me high on my left cheekbone. “Your parents are waiting for you, love.” I pressed my hand to his bare, gleaming, well-chiseled, russet, warm- God, STOP with the adjectives; you’re going to make yourself sick- chest while thinking about exactly how little my waiting parents bothered me. He chuckled again and drew me in closer to kiss the top of my head. “They can hear us, you know, and they’re getting impatient. And I need to get dressed- I have class at eight. And this whole college thing was your idea.”

I pushed away from him playfully. “Yes, a college degree won’t benefit you at all.”

“You have your mother to thank for me even finishing high school.”

“Yes, yes, I know…” I winked at him and slid out of the room. My next door neighbor was leaving his room wearing jogging shorts and a sweat band; he caught sight of me and dropped his iPod on his foot, proceeding to somehow tangle the cords of his headphones into his shoelaces. “Uh… good morning.”

His face arranged itself into a holy Hell, she just spoke to me look of panic. I shrugged and walked around the corner to my parents’ room, gave a perfunctory knock, and entered.

“G’morning.” Edward and Bella were seated in front of Edward’s sleek laptop.

“Good morning, Renessmee,” Bella answered smoothly. Sometimes I hated how her voice made mine feel- strident and raspy- though I knew that my voice was more beautiful than any human’s voice could ever be. “We’ve had an email from Carlisle- do you want to read it?”

“In a second- wasn’t there something that you wanted to talk about, though?”

Edward looked up and gave me a wry half-smile. “I just wanted to warn you to be careful about the human male populace. I’ve heard what they’ve been thinking about you and Rosalie and… well.”

I blushed slightly. “That bad?”

“If you don’t want Jake to lose it and phase- which, really, might be humorous- you’ll want to make sure that you assert that you are married. They already think that we’re part of some strange religious sect, so it won’t be too hard to isolate ourselves- but, of course, if you should find that you don’t want to be isolated… give me the rundown one more time?”

I rolled my eyes. Edward had already asked me to describe the new ‘relations’ of our family at least five times in the last day- but he wanted to be sure that I could deliver without hesitation. “My name is Renesmee Black, born Renesmee Cullen, the daughter of Carlisle and Esme. My twin brother married Bella Swan, older sister of Alice Swan, now Alice Whitlock after her marriage to Jasper. Emmett and Rosalie Hale- formerly Rosalie Vera- are of no blood relation to us, but Rosalie was adopted by Carlisle and Esme when she was very young… Satisfied?”

Edward grinned. “Quite, actually. So,” he said, quickly swinging one leg over the chair to face me, “are you ready for your first class?”

“Yes. I have theory at ten.”

“Should be easy for you.” Bella was right; it would be. Edward had taught me standard seventeenth and eighteenth-century counterpoint when I was two.

“I’m going to go practice before then.” Singing was something natural to me, as my body’s patterns never changed: I never practiced save for when I was learning new repertoire. But I was going to have to start.

“Also a good idea.”

“What do you guys have first?”

Edward sighed, leaning his head forward to pinch the bridge of his nose in that characteristically annoyed way that he did, and even Bella looked aggravated. “Freshman English.”

“Ha.” As a conservatory student, I had very few core academic requirements; Introductory English Composition was not one of them. “Have fun with that.”

Edward glowered in my direction. “Young lady, when you’ve suffered through beginning composition classes five times in a lifetime that never seems to last as long as the class that you’re sitting in does, let me know if you still feel so inclined to gloat.”

I sniggered unkindly, and then smiled warmly at both of them. “So I guess I’ll be going?”

Bella shrugged. “If you’d like. Please don’t leave the building without Alice, though.” I gave her a look of unflattering disbelief and she amended: “just for this first day.”

I giggled. “Okay, if you want. Love you guys.”

Alice was waiting in the hallway, holding my packed backpack. “Are you ready?”

“What’s the rush? It’s only fifteen after six.”

“But I want to check out the building! Get the feel of the place! Find out which rooms have the best acoustics! Come on, it’ll be so much fun!”

“Alice, this had better not be a ruse to make me go shopping with you.”

The girl had the gall to look offended, and then slightly sheepish. “Well… I did think that maybe we could scope out some of the local stores- see what’s really upscale and what’s substandard and so on- but if the idea really bothers you that much…” Her bottom lip jutted out in a half-contrived and half-extremely genuine pout.

“At six in the morning.”

“You are way too preoccupied with concepts of time, do you know that?”

“I need sleep. Thank God my husband understands that.”

“Hmm. Well. Are you coming?”

I groaned. “Fine.”

…

I could hear the whispers as Edward and I walked down the hallway of the English building hand-in-hand. I wore a nicely understated shirt with three-quarter length sleeves that somehow drew attention to my fingers- and to my rings. Edward hadn’t asked me to dress to emphasize my marital status, but I knew that today would be far easier on him if he didn’t have to hear the constant litany of commentary about his wife’s body and what various young males wanted to do with it… Not that seeing the wedding ring would stop such thoughts in their tracks, but at least people would know that I wasn’t available. However, though I couldn’t hear what the women were thinking, I could certainly hear what they were saying about Edward… and I didn’t like it.

“God, check out his ass. Can you believe that?”

“Looks like the girl’s with him, though.”

“Starting your college career with a girlfriend is always pathetic. Don’t worry, he’ll probably Turkey Dump her.”

“Turkey Dump?”

“Yeah, that’s what they call Thanksgiving-time breakups.”

I shot Edward a look that told him exactly how I felt about the conversation behind us. His eyebrow raised in amusement as he steered me into the third-floor classroom where we were to have our first class, planting a kiss on the top of my head and pulling me closer as he did so. I heard a sharp intake of breath behind us and almost chuckled.

Edward pulled me into a seat about four rows back- still toward the front of the large lecture hall. I concentrated on not breaking my desk as I unfolded it from my armrest. As I finally managed to get all of the hinges unfolded in the right direction, I pushed my shield away from my mind, still not liking the sensation as I did so. These desks are so unnecessary. I almost snapped the darned thing- would it kill them to have normal desks on four legs? Edward winked at me and leaned in to whisper.

“The more elaborate the better- this is academia.”

I nodded and then looked away; three guys seemed to be jostling in the aisle to see who would get into our row of seats first. I didn’t need to be a mind-reader to tell why they were so intent on sitting in my row.

“You know, if you didn’t look so indecently appealing…” Edward growled in my ear. I elbowed him in the ribs with a noise like rocks being slammed together; the man at the lecture podium gave his TA a look of pure alarm and went to check the sound system. The tallest of the guys- a body-builder type- had won the ‘battle’ and was sliding into the seat next to me; similarly, a flat-ironed blonde was preening herself in the seat next to Edward. I rolled my eyes and fiddled with my wedding and engagement rings conspicuously on the desk.

“Family heirloom?” The body-builder-guy didn’t have to sound so enthusiastic. “I’m Brian.”

I turned my head toward him and was bombarded with the onslaught of his scent. Classmate, not snack. Classmate, not snack. My hands clenched and I bit my tongue against the sudden welling of venom in my mouth. “I’m Bella.” I extended my right hand to him, and smiled in that particular feline way that Victoria had always smiled in my nightmares. He shuddered as he took my hand.

“Bad circulation?”

You can’t be serious. “You could say so.”

“Yeah, my mom has that problem, too.” If your mother really has this problem, you’re going to have a really big shock next time you visit home. “But, yeah. Your ring? It looks old. Is it a family keepsake or something?”

“In a way. It’s been in my husband’s family for quite a long time.” I smirked a bit as I saw his jaw drop at the mention of the word husband.

“You’re… married? But you look so young…”

“I suppose so.” Edward shifted to put his arm around my shoulder, and Brian seemed to deflate like a balloon. The blonde on the other side of Edward made a slight noise of consternation.

To my relief, at that moment, the professor clapped his hands into the microphone set into his podium. “Okay, welcome to Introductory English Composition! I’m Professor Williamson, and…”

I had just reached for my notebook when Edward’s head snapped violently toward the window. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I turned to follow his gaze, and bit back a gasp.

In the window stood a vampire with such a look of devastation in his golden eyes that I could not bear to hold his gaze… a vampire that I’d never expected to see here, of all places.

“Garrett?”