I think I'd never cried so hard while reading a fanfiction. So damn well written... I wish everyone I know could read this, but I live in Brasil and, unfortunately, not all of them understand english. Thank you for this awesome story.

OMG are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit? Edward and bellas fucking daughter? OH HELL NO...I would have fucking kicked his ass out of my house in a motherfucking heartbeat! like she wont be grossed the fuck out that her "mate" used to love her MOM?
that's not something you can get over...EVER and I'm so grossed out that Edward wasn't feeling super fucking shitty about that...he should have just killed himself right there when he saw bella...just set himself on fire cause really who could live with that? so fucking gross

Great idea, doing the epilogue in Skyler’s voice!

Oh, my: ‘…I remember how, on the last night I saw her eyes open, the ache seemed to ease for the first time, as if she was finally looking forward, instead of back.’

So true: ‘I'm having a hard time ignoring the part of me that wants to use my stronger-than-steel fingernail to carve my mother's name just below his, so that people can understand that when one person dies, he can take two hearts with him.’

Sniffle: ‘The soft, sad smile on her face whenever I caught her thinking about my dad. The echo of light in her eyes whenever she talked about him. The love that still glowed from inside her, even so many years later.’

Hmm, she’s leaving her mother’s subway token charm on her father’s grave, or as close as she can get?

Nicely said: ‘Finally, she said that my father was so much more than the way he died – that all of the things worth remembering about him were because of the way he lived.’

One more time, thank you so much for this amazing story. It’s one of those fics that transcends the genre – while remaining true to the original characters, you took us somewhere entirely different, imagined a different life for them.

I’d like to add my thanks to HollettLA as well, ‘for telling [you] this wasn't a crazy idea’. I expect otherwise it would never have seen the light of day.

Tyler to Michael:
‘And something else I've learned: that the painful has a way of leading you to the beautiful.
I wish you could have stuck around long enough to learn that.’
Oh, sigh. Little brother has certainly grown up.

‘Bella takes Skyler through photo albums the way she has so many times, filling in the gaps of her daughter's memory with stories that she can keep like mementos after her mother is long gone.’
Couldn’t help it, I thought she ought to tell the stories to the perfect-memory vampire.

Nice! ‘They had done a good job of it, she thinks now, making a family out of scraps.’

OMG: ‘Kelsey and Aidan's twin toddlers…’ Makes me smile.

What an unexpectedly nice moment, Edward showing discreet concern when he notices Bella’s heartbeat skipping.

Surprising, but not: ‘Fleetingly, she thinks that, if things had been different, she and Edward probably could have been pretty decent friends.’

Good for Bella, to Edward: "You get that [leaving her] wasn't really your choice to make, right?”
And even better:
“Edward, promise me that you'll never belittle Skyler that way. …She deserves better. She deserves to be treated as your equal."
Too bad she couldn’t say that while twisting his balls.
Well, maybe there’s hope: ‘…the comparative lightness that characterizes this new Edward…’

Aww: ‘"Everyone here loves you," he says simply, and she smiles, body melting in warm happiness.’

Makes perfect sense that Bella would be concerned about Jacob being left by both her and Skyler.
What a great speech (to Edward) about Jacob’s place in her and Skyler’s lives. And a nice touch that you had him find someone.

Beautifully said:
‘If the circumstances weren't so tragic, it would be as straightforward, as uncomplicated, as a million little gestures of love over a lifetime together… In a simpler life, there wouldn't be anything sad about it.’

Wonderful: ‘Bella takes a mental picture of this boy her daughter loves, this teenager who will keep her child young forever…’
“Teenager” is such a stark contrast to Bella’s reality! As you’ve said many times through this story, we’d never have gotten to see this Bella if she had gotten her wish to become a vampire back in Forks.

Remarkable: Bella tells Alice she and Edward were “reminiscing”. ‘Bella laughs, and marvels again at her ability to find humor in something that was once so fraught with pain.’

Good observation, from Alice: "We don't really…get to see people age. Generally, we move on before anyone has a chance to really get older around us, and once we say our goodbyes, that's it.”
And this, from Bella: ‘…the endless limitations on their lives despite all of the wealth and time and strength at their disposal. To have to choose from among the gloomiest towns, to have surface friendships lasting only a few short years, to always be leaving things – and people – behind.’

Talking about Les and Diane being at the party … how hard it will be for them to lose Skyler, after Tyler and then Bella. Wow.

Cute: "Oh," Alice breathes, eyes glazing over slightly. "If only New York had less sun. And more wildlife."

Sniffle: ‘And when fireworks burst to life above them, Bella barely glances at them, instead gazing at her child's beautiful face, bathed in explosions of colorful light.’

Beautiful job describing Bella’s gradual fading from this life.

Oh geez, this line killed me: ‘And, one last time, he lets her go.’

Wonderfully imagined reunion.

Oh my gosh, Tyler’s journal entry from his last morning on earth! I really like how you let him grow beyond where Michael ever reached.

First of all, how dare you break my heart like that. I was prepared for a Remember Me level of heartbreak, but this was SO MUCH WORSE. And for you to have written it so beautifully made it hurt so much worse! Ugh. I loved it, but it hurts so much. Beautiful story

I seem to have run out of words... but not tears... they just don't seem to stop

Jesus... still brawling... the writings to Michael are wonderful

This is so not where I see this going... shocked... and it see..ms like bella's life has been so awful... although I can kind of see it in the bigger picture... im crying too much to be able to enjoy it

Love the name you chose... its perfect

I don't know how you did it.., but Tyler makes more sense now than Edward and I love them together. But there is dread for what's ahead... its strange reading knowing what's coming..,

Have avoided this for so long cos much as I adore remember me... its tough... but after just finishing snow fall I need more of your amazing writing so im being brave...

What an interesting phrase: Tyler ‘ wanted his [father’s] attention but not his approval’.
Surprising: ‘But now I think that maybe I sort of get it. Where the drive came from.’

Wow, Tyler to Michael: ‘I realize that, perhaps for the first time in my life, I'm stronger than you were.’
I did not expect that!

I can’t imagine this line of thought: ‘She likely won't be here by the end of summer, but after she's gone, there will be a row of blooms to remind Jake and Skyler that she was here for a while.’
But we all get there eventually, and we can only hope for such grace.

An intriguing question: ‘There's a dark corner of her mind that wonders what Tyler would think, if he were here – if he'd be angry or disappointed in her willingness, once again, to surrender her life.’
And yet, ‘this time, she's not giving it up for a boy. She's giving it up for herself.’

Wonderful: Alice’s ‘voice, it takes her back years. To surrogate families and vampire secrets and first loves and losses and to herself, so young and so untried and so vulnerable. Even with parts carved out of her and a body failing her by degrees, she feels like a pillar of strength in comparison.’

Brave of Esme: "We never got to say goodbye before. We wanted the chance to say it now."

Nice observation: ‘Bella finds it faintly amusing – everyone always thought of Carlisle as the one who steered the family, but really, Esme was the wind in the sails.’

Huh. Bella ‘hopes, given everything, that he finds his way back to them. She wouldn't mind so much, knowing that Skyler would be part of this family.’
I guess I just assumed that having found another love, Edward would have rejoined the Cullens. But yeah, when they talked he didn’t say that.

Yes, it makes me feel sadly hollow that this never happened:
"Bella, you and I were meant to be great friends. I knew it. I saw it. But then he just…changed his mind. And he took that away.”
Sniffle: "And then you met Tyler, and I watched you come alive." And thank goodness Alice butted out at that point.

It also surprised me that Bella never realized that it was to prevent her death that Edward intervened on that day. This was heart-wrenching: “I didn't know Tyler was inside. I just saw you standing at the foot of the building…”
Ah, Alice didn’t even know about Skyler, because of Jacob’s constant presence. Only the glimpse of Bella once in town without him, so she knew Bella was OK.
Whew, very well plotted!

Well, despite my concerns about Edward’s emotional maturity, this is true: ‘If there were a mother in the world to whom she would trust her daughter's safety, her well-being, it would be Esme Cullen.’ And I have to assume that this time, they would ALL stand up to him if he did anything stupid with Skyler.

A lovely reflection on Esme’s own story: "That choice took me from my very mortal anguish to another plane of existence, where I was once again able to feel unmitigated joy."
Sniffle: "I hope you find your joy, Bella."

This seems like an awfully slippery slope to me: “Not anything about my history with Edward, obviously. But perhaps you can somehow tell her that you spent some time in Forks and that you knew me and Charlie.”
But then I suppose the professional lying vampires could pull it off. Hmm, makes me wonder if Skyler knows about Jacob’s history in Forks, that he has history with the Cullens. Although he has gone all Skyler's life telling her only what Bella wants her to know.

Fascinating:
“What happened in Forks was difficult for everyone, you and Edward especially. But even as devastated as he was, and as desolate as he was after what happened in New York, you showed him that he could love and be loved. If not for you, I don't think he'd have Skyler, and I mean that in more ways than the obvious. You turned the vampire boy human again in every way that matters."
So Esme, at least, thinks that Edward learned and grew from his experiences with Bella.

Fabulous:
‘The heartache she'd felt after Edward left her, the regrets she'd felt about all of the things she felt she'd missed out on, led her to love Tyler fiercely, completely, wholly, all of the time. There was never a moment when she felt like she'd held anything back from him, kept a part of herself in reserve, and it was this truth in which she found comfort after he was gone. While he was here, she'd loved him with all she had. What more is there?’

So touching, from Tyler’s journal:
‘She still thinks I'm going to be able to be a good dad to our kid. And more than anything, I want to prove her right. The minute those words fell from her lips, I couldn't look at her, because I was about two seconds away from crying like a chump.’

What an image: ‘I imagined bringing her back here to the beach, tying her to me forever with formal words beneath a bright blue sky, our kid in my arms as I made her every promise I have to make.’
I think my heart just cracked again.

‘Because for her, I know I'd wait forever.’
And he kind of has. She certainly has.

OK, so now we’re at another major appearance by Edward, and I have almost as much indigestion as last time, for slightly different reasons! But I applaud your bravery in telling your story your way.

Wonderful bit of Tyler’s journal at the beginning. I snickered that he even gets up (presumably after their first lovemaking) to make another note in his journal.

Wow: ‘She can't tell [Skyler] the truth: that losing one battle feels suspiciously like winning another.’

Reading this for the second time, I paid reeeally close attention to Edward’s arrival with Skyler. My first time through I was thoroughly skeptical that Bella could have pulled off such a cool-headed reaction. This time I decided that this is the key point: ‘A million thoughts fly through her mind in this moment, a million details assail her, but the one that catches and holds is this: Skyler's arm is looped through his, and the smile on her face is one Bella's never seen before.’ Never having been a mom myself, I concede that maybe I just don’t understand the power of this motivation to avoid jeopardizing her daughter’s happiness.

Very interesting: ‘And her mind splits Edward yet again.’ No doubt true: ‘She feels as though she's lived a lifetime between the last time she saw him and now, and Edward hasn't changed a fraction.’

This is a big ol’ stretch for me too: ‘despite her inability to understand how it could be possible, he didn't know Skyler was her daughter.’ You did establish at the beginning that this is a relatively new relationship. But no family pictures, anywhere? And no resemblance to her mother?

The thing I had the hardest time with is dissatisfaction with the depth of their discussion after Skyler went to sleep. I do think she asked the most important question – “Does she know what you are?” – when they first came in the house. But holy crap, I can’t imagine that her mind wasn’t a tornado of questions that demanded answers. Basically, how the bloody hell can she trust him?

This is a good point: ‘Selflessly, she wants him to be here for Sky.’ Yes, here in their house during this visit, but also after Bella is gone. More reliably “there for Sky” than anyone else could possibly be.

Good one: ‘The ease with which the lie falls from his lips takes Bella aback, and while she knows it's a result of his lifestyle, she wonders how many innocent little untruths she swallowed when she was seventeen.’
You know, you’re right, canon Edward seemed awfully comfortable with variations on the truth.

Excellent: seeing Skyler watch Edward at dinner, Bella wonders ‘Had she been this transparent at seventeen? Probably.’

And this is a good point: ‘Bella doesn't miss the look of adoring gratitude that sweeps across Edward's features, melting him from polite vampire almost-man to lovestruck teenage boy. …Bella's heart is an odd mix of fear and joy. It's the look every mother wants to see bestowed on her child…’

Sniffle: ‘for the millionth time in eighteen years, Bella is grateful beyond belief that her daughter wears Tyler's smile.’

Killer phrase: ‘soaking in the simplicity of her daughter's very existence’.

What a blessing she bestows, knowing the unique decisions Skyler will be facing:
“Nobody else has to understand, as long as you and the person you love are in it together. Okay? As long as you're happy, and loved, I'm happy for you. I want for you what you want for yourself. Whatever that is. Okay?"

This is a welcome insight: “It was always difficult, living in a family of couples, but after…Forks…" He hesitates, tossing her an apologetic look before returning his golden eyes upward. "I couldn't bear it. So I decided to go my own way. I kept in touch, but I lived alone.”
Oh wait, and Alice might not have seen this because of Jacob’s presence.

So true: ‘Despite everything, how fated it all seems, there remains a thin thread of bitterness; despite everything, she knows that Edward – and his immortality – come with a darkness Skyler has never known.’

Oh my gosh:
‘Then it hits her: he's in love, and this time, he doesn't feel badly about it. She has no doubt that Edward loved her, once upon a time, but his love was always tinged with self-reproach, self-loathing, a guilt so bone-deep that it cast a pall over the euphoria of the love itself. He had loved her, and he had hated himself for it.’
Great observation, but WHY is it different with Skyler than it was with Bella? (At least she’s not his singer, I guess.)

Well done:
‘… she is surprised by the realization that she's almost happy for him. He looks the way she felt when she was with Tyler, and despite everything, she has always wished that Edward would find peace somehow.’

“Edward, is she…the one? Is she it?"
I don’t understand how she can simply accept his “yes”. He certainly told Bella at 17 that SHE was “it”, why would she trust that he knows with any more certainty now?

Wow, it’s shocking to realize they’ve never had the conversation about why he left. This was especially touching: “I knew you loved someone else as soon as I saw you…as soon as I saw the terror in your face."

Finally - she thanks him for saving her (and Skyler’s) life in New York!

“I sort of wonder if this was how it was meant to be all along. … I was supposed to … meet Tyler and have Sky so that you could meet Sky."
Urgh, queasy flashbacks of Jacob imprinting on she-who-must-not-be-named.

Good for her, asking Edward to help her die once she gets close to the end. It surprised me a little that the possibility of changing her wasn’t raised, but I suppose he already understands that she doesn’t want immortality without Tyler.

Nice: ‘she is nearly overwhelmed by relief at the truth: there is no longer any part of her heart that belongs to Edward Cullen.’

Sensational journal entry from Tyler quoted at the end.

OK, so after working through this chapter again, my deepest reservation is that I don’t understand why she trusts Edward with her daughter’s heart. How can she possibly be confident that he has worked through everything that poisoned their relationship? Perhaps she’s entirely leaving the choice in Skyler’s hands, but … yikes.

And still, I love this story beyond all reason!

I enjoyed the extracts from Tyler’s journal. Almost like a blast from the past.

Good for Charles: ‘The royalties from [the book’s] sales were astonishing, and Charles split them evenly into a trust for Caroline's education and a savings account for Bella and her daughter.’

Hmm: ‘She feels so utterly different now from the girl she was in high school that to look back, to reminisce, makes her feel as though she's wading through someone else's memories. Some days her ability to compartmentalize Edward surprises her, but it's something for which she decides simply to be grateful.’
Especially now that her life revolves around her daughter with Tyler.

“Skybug” – I like it.

Wonderful observation: ‘[Jacob] shifts in her small wooden dining chair, and the familiarity of it strikes her: he'd never looked completely comfortable indoors.’

Totally believable the way she has reacted to Kelsey and Aidan: ‘She isn't ready to have them in her space, such concrete reminders of a not-long-gone time when her life looked so very different. So very happy.’

I would have predicted that I’d be groaning at Jacob’s arrival, but you’ve made an interesting adjustment to the dynamic. I’m glad to see how much both of them have matured since Forks, each taking responsibility for their own needs and responses, and respecting the other’s choices. This could work!

Fascinating: "No one has phased or changed in two years." His voice lowers. "They never came back, Bella. I don't think they ever will."
So the pack is more or less free to go back to life as it was before the Cullens arrived from Alaska? Except their experiences as supernatural creatures have permanently altered them and their view of the world.

Makes perfect sense: "I'll make you a deal. If I imprint on someone, I'm out. If not, I'm here."

Good one: ‘she hears Charlie's words from years ago: Sometimes, Bells, you've gotta learn to love what's good for you.’

Touching: ‘…while there are parts of her that will never be fixed, [Jacob is] managing to heal the ones that can, and as when she was seventeen, she finds herself so grateful for his unwavering friendship that some days she thinks she could cry.’

Sigh: ‘she tries not to feel like a coward for her inability to separate the ache of missing Tyler from the desire of his family to hold on to her, and to Tyler's daughter.’
And yet with the woman who owns the coffee shop, Bella ‘finds consolation in someone else's memories of the boy she loves.’ I guess it’s a matter of the degree of intensity, of intimacy. And how deep the other person’s pain is.

Nice: ‘She can feel the bulky muscle beneath [Aidan’s] cotton t-shirt that she still hasn't quite gotten used to, even though he's been a firefighter for four years now.’

So well said: ‘… people who encourage her to move on. People who loved Tyler, too, but somehow don't seem to understand how no one else could ever possibly be enough.’

Wonderful mom moment, re Skyler throwing herself down the hill: "We let her do it before dinner so that she's less tempted to do it after.”

Excellent: ‘Over time, though, Bella found that it was a relief to talk about him, to remember him with people who knew and loved him, to laugh over memories – even if the laughter was often laughter through tears. If memories are all she'll ever have left of Tyler, she's determined not to hide from them.’

Oh my goodness, what a conversation!
“Just because your daddy's not here doesn't mean I don't still love him."
"But he's been gone for a long time," Skyler says carefully, and Bella nods again.
"Yes. He has."
"So when will you be done loving him?" …
"Never, baby."
Children’s observations can be so sharp.

She didn’t get “forever” with Edward, but in her own way she’s grabbing it with Tyler.

Wow: ‘She tries not to feel as though the scalpel of life is simply cutting parts of her away, one slice at a time, her physical scars beginning to rival her emotional ones.’

Wow again: ‘…the city itself stopped being symbolic of her rebirth and started being another reminder of things she had lost.’

Haven’t been to NYC since the memorial opened, but I love your description of it.

OMG, what a moment. However many times I read this, it will always bring tears.
‘As she stands blind, hand registering only the faintest echo of her own heartbeat, she does what she's made it her life's mission not to do: she looks back.
She remembers.
Then, just as memories of a voice thick with tears over a cell phone speaker, memories of the sky falling, memories of screams and shrieks and dust and debris and devastation begin to replay in her mind, she feels a small hand slide into hers and she opens her eyes. Looking down into twin pools of green-blue, she forces a smile to her face as tears mingle with the faint sheen of spray on her cheeks.
"I found him," Skyler says softly…’

Interesting completion of the canon arc: ‘…she's been escaping external dangers for too long; it seems only fitting that her ultimate adversary would come from inside her.’

So well said: ‘At nine, and at twelve, and at fifteen, Skyler still needed a mother for all of the day-to-day things that moms do, and Bella had fought for those things. For the chance to be the one to do them. She fought not to leave her daughter without either one of her parents…’

Nice: ‘She can admit to still being surprised, even after all these years, at the ease with which [Jacob] has fit himself into her life, content, as he promised, just to be part of it.’

How difficult, maybe impossible, for Jacob to accept her decision to stop treatment!

Whoa: “Ever since you've known me, I've been in love with dead men."

Sniffle: ‘But what she remembers most clearly, perhaps, is the faint trace of relief on [Charlie’s] face when his time was almost up, the bone-deep gratitude of a marathon runner within steps of the finish line.’
Perfect that Charlie would have helped with the Ground Zero recovery efforts.

Maybe the biggest “wow” of all:
‘"What if after this, there's just…nothing? … What if you don't get him back?"
… "I want to be where he is, even if it's nowhere," she says finally.’

Astonishing – you actually make me feel empathy for Jacob!
‘…wishing that he were still the kind of man who wished on stars, but remembering far too clearly all of the times he's made wishes that never came true.’
Sigh.

Wonderful story.