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The Newborn
By : belladonnacullen
Category: Twilight Series > Het
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Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or make any money from this story.
Chapter List
- 16
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The Boy & The Bear Pt. II, or Hells’ Not So Bad If You Get to Keep an Angel

Back at our little homestead, Esme and I worked quickly to close the house and bring the few small items that we would be able to carry with us as we ran. Yes, ran. We’d have to travel through the most remote locations, inaccessible by road if possible. We needed to keep the man’s screams as far from human ears as we could, and we needed to be as far from civilization as possible when he awoke.

I listened to the thoughts of Carlisle and Rosalie in the clinic, keeping tabs on the situation as I worked. Rosalie’s mind was focused almost completely on the proper technique for massaging the man’s heart. This singular focus was astonishing for a vampire, and I was once again in awe of her strength. Meanwhile, Carlisle brainstormed about the quickest way possible to bring the venom to the man’s heart, so that it would begin to beat on its own again. I saw the solution in Carlisle’s brain.

“No!” I muttered out loud. Esme’s eyes sought mine out, her hand on my arm.

“Is Rosalie’s man… is he gone?” she asked with bated breath.

“Carlisle… bit… his heart. To bring the venom there faster.”

Esme brought her hand to her mouth, in her mind she added this remarkable action to the list of reasons she loved her husband with all of her heart.

But back at the clinic, Carlisle continued to worry over the man’s transformation. The man was in such a severe state of shock that the blood was shunted almost completely to his vital organs. This could extend the time it took to bring the venom to all of his extremities, time we didn’t have in this close-knit community, where I could already hear the beginnings of suspicious thoughts from our neighbors. I watched Rosalie’s surprise as Carlisle proceeded to bite each of the man’s wrists and ankles.

“Edward, what is it?” Esme was at my side again.

“Everything’s fine, Esme. I was distracted by Carlisle’s thoughts, by seeing him work. He’s a brilliant physician.”

Esme smiled warmly. “Yes.” And her mind filled with visions of Carlisle behind a microscope, at a patient’s bedside, and then a blurry vision of Carlisle attending to her own broken leg as a girl. Esme shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. “But we must work quicker, Edward. We should all be together, in case…” Esme didn’t finish her thought out loud. But mentally she saw our neighbors coming after us with burning torches and ropes of garlic.

We packed a change of clothes for each of us, rugged garments that would wear well over rough terrain. Then for Rosalie, Esme packed her favorite tortoise shell hair combs, and for Carlisle she packed the slides he made of the local medicinal plants. Esme folded the first blueprint she’d made for our house into a little square and tucked it into her own pocket. For myself, I chose a paperback copy of Look Homeward, Angel, a dreary and uninspiring novel that nevertheless, would forever fondly remind me of the time I’d spent in this part of the country.

Esme’s eyes lingered around her, loving each beam in the ceiling, the choice of wood, of stone, the large hearth in the sitting room, the placement of each of the windows. This little home was the first design she’d ever brought to life. I knew that she hadn’t felt this much at home since Bronxville. I’d destroyed that for her. And now this… Rosalie, taking it all away from her again.

“I’m sorry, Esme, that you have to leave the life you and Carlisle made for yourselves here.”

Esme turned and smiled at me a little sadly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Edward. I’d do anything for Rosalie’s happiness. As I would for yours. We have forever. We’ll have a home again.”

We didn’t need our vampire senses to hear the first screams from the man. Deep, nearly inhuman bellows shattered the cold mountain air and reverberated through the nearby canyons. It was sooner than it should have been. Perhaps the variations Carlisle had made actually had sped the process. Esme’s eyes flew to my face, full of question and fear. What would we do until we could move him? How would we explain it?

No words needed be spoken between Esme and I. We quickly finished securing the windows, drawing the shutters, and covering furniture before locking the door and dashing through the forest so that we could make it to the clinic as rapidly as possible.

Even as I ran toward it as fast as my legs could carry me, that little clinic was one of the last places on this earth I wanted to visit. It had only been two years since I saw Rosalie begging for death, and Carlisle at the bedside, visibly torn and clinging to his faith. I wasn’t over that yet. And for some reason, my own transformation was at the forefront of my mind. To vicariously experience that again: a man unconscious, ripped from his own journey toward death, unaware of what was happening and whom he would meet on the other side. Did he dream he’d see a grandparent, or perhaps a dead uncle, when he woke? Instead, he’d find himself alone, forever, left with a decision about whether to adopt a family of monsters as his own.

It was almost too sad to bear.

But this was a decision we’d made as a family, and I had to face the repercussions, however painful, dangerous, and horrifying they might be. I’d have to face the man’s desperation and anger at being taken from the world of the living, never to make the journey to an afterlife, condemned to walk the earth without a soul forever. To watch the horror on his face as he realized that the only thing that would sustain this life, if you could call it that, was to live on the blood of the living.

I listened intently to the neighboring humans as we ran to the clinic. It was bad. Even though many were working in the fields, word had spread that the clinic had been closed under mysterious circumstances, that the doctor’s son had scared his patients away from the clinic, and that someone or something was screaming in pain from within its locked doors.

I grabbed Esme’s hand and pulled her along. I may not have wanted to face this, but discovery would put all of our lives into danger, so I would meet it head-on with all I had.

I listened intently to Carlisle’s thoughts as he measured the progression of the venom, watched the wounds knit back together, hoping for a quick recovery so that we could move on. I listened to Rosalie’s frantic thoughts as she watched the man’s every move, every change in his facial expression; dying right along with him, feeling his pain, desperate because she couldn’t ease it. And then there were the thoughts of someone else… not thoughts exactly, not real images, either, just half-formed ideas: resignation, angels, God, a vague feeling that… he was in hell and he wasn’t surprised.

I understood the part about hell. It was the only thing that a human mind could possibly conjure to compare with the all-consuming, burning torture of transformation. But, he was expecting to go there: that had me anxious. Who was this man? A criminal? Thief? Murderer? What had we done when we agreed to change him for Rosalie?

*****

Rosalie heard Esme and I approaching and met us at the clinic entrance, throwing herself into Esme’s arms, burying her face in Esme’s hair.

“Oh Esme, it’s awful. He hasn’t woken up, he’s still torn open, and he’s in so much pain. Carlisle thought morphine might help, but his veins were already closed from the venom. I can’t do anything for him!” The howls of pain from within the clinic intensified and Rosalie clutched Esme tighter.

“What did I do? What did I do?”

I was somewhat impatient with her thoughts. Rosalie couldn’t have forgotten the searing pain of transformation. She’d known what she was asking. Could she have been so blinded by her own selfish desires, that she hadn’t considered what this man would endure? I didn’t want to think so; it would be a hell of a thing for me to hang over Rosalie’s head for eternity.

Esme pushed Rosalie up and held her at arm’s length, staring her sternly in the eye. “Listen to me Rosalie: you wanted this. You said that you loved that man. Each of us agreed to this for your sake. So, you march right back in there and you sit by that man’s side. It’s been less than an hour. You have three days ahead of you. You’d best get used to it.”

Rosalie sniffled and looked back toward the exam room, her face contorted in agony, wringing her hands. The howls died down for a moment, and we could hear Carlisle’s voice murmuring calmly to the man; whispered words that we each knew well from our own transformation.

“And you will have speed and strength beyond measure…”

“God?”

I spun in the direction of the exam room. It was just a word, a singular thought. Unfamiliar, and close by.

“God…? In hell?”

I took a step toward the door. “Rosalie, I think he’s waking a bit.”

Rosalie ran back without hesitation, with Esme following closely at her heels. I listened as the groaning recommenced, and as Esme exclaimed at the site of the man, still so raw and open. Through Esme’s mind’s eye I watched Carlisle work to keep the wound approximated, waiting for the venom that would allow him to heal and allow us to finally move. I listened to Carlisle’s thoughts of relief at having Esme by his side, and then I watched through his eyes as Esme pulled Carlisle away from the man and took him in her arms, her mind practically shouting aloud her respect, compassion, and undying love for her husband.

“God, why did you leave? You left me in hell. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me to burn here,” the man’s mind cried out. He screamed incoherently on the table and bellowed in frustration because he was unable to move, to writhe with the pain.

I listened to Rosalie’s mind, trying to figure out what to say, what to do that would help. She ran through every possibility, but in the end she knew what we all knew too well. Nothing would help; nothing could ease the pain. Only death, and now, that would be impossible.

I finally steeled myself to physically walk into the exam room, just in time to see Rosalie take the man’s hand in hers, and wipe the tears from his face.

“I’m here,” she murmured in his ear, so quietly that I didn’t believe the man could have heard her over his own voice. But his wildly ranging and rolling eyes managed to focus on Rosalie, and his voice gradually hushed to a low moan.

“She’s back, my angel. In hell?" And through his mind’s eye, I saw Rosalie’s face, her hair a blurry golden haze that the man imagined as a celestial glow. Rosalie, an angel. I managed to smile, despite the situation.

Esme and Carlisle moved closer to Rosalie and the man, he was still moaning, his eyes still went in and out of focus, but with Rosalie next to him, he was able to calm himself. His thoughts swirled through his head without direction, I saw the bear attack, the blur of forest as he’d been carried by Rosalie, people, boys, a woman, his family perhaps, and Rosalie’s face lit by that golden glow. “My angel.”

“I think we’ve found our solution to the problem,” Carlisle smiled in relief. “Rosalie, you must stay here, right here, until the wounds have healed. I’ll make rounds in the community and spread word that the man you returned with has a contagious and life-threatening illness, and that the clinic will be closed until further notice. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Things are progressing rapidly, better than I would have hoped. I feel certain that we may be able to leave sometime after nightfall.”

Carlisle was quickly out the door and Esme and I fell into the suspended animation that passes for vampire relaxation, the relaxation of not having to move, not having to pretend, not having to direct our thoughts enough to string words together; just being.

The man’s low moans were interspersed with thoughts about hell, about his luck at having an angel there with him. All three of us stirred and smiled with relief when after another hour the man was able to thrash his arms and legs in pain. We knew that the venom had healed his spinal column, and hoped the injuries to his organs and blood vessels were also mending. And no one was happier than Rosalie to restrain the man now that he was more mobile, pinning him to the table.

I removed myself from her mind and from the room, suddenly uncomfortable at the juxtaposition of the man’s pain, and her pain mixed with pleasure. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it and I had no desire to try. Instead, I lingered in the front office, listening to the thoughts of the nearest humans with some relief. While there was still mild curiosity about the ailing man, their fears had subsided as the noises he made had quieted and as Carlisle had shown his reassuring face in the town. The humans had no desire at all to approach us, lest they too end up a screaming and writhing mass quarantined to the clinic in isolation.

That is, all except for one fearless and driven human, that had never shown any regard for self-preservation in my presence. I heard Warren’s thoughts as he walked purposefully toward the clinic’s entrance, eager to see Rosalie, to speak with her, to pick up where they left off. Over the past two weeks, he’d asked me about Rosalie daily, often multiple times per day. I’d told the boy that she was visiting distant relatives, but of course, he’d blamed himself for her hasty departure, even though he couldn’t figure out what had happened.

I met him at the door.

“Warren.” I kept my demeanor calm, my face carefully arranged in a look of compassion.

“I heard she’s back, Edward. I need to speak to her. I… I didn’t do anything to your cousin. I’m sorry. I just, I just got to make it right.”

“She’s in quarantine, Warren. You could get sick.”

“I don’t care,” he said, as he tried to push me out of the way. I held my ground, and I saw his eyes go wide as he realized how solid I actually was.

“My father would never allow it. I can’t let you in.”

“You’re inside,” Warren countered.

I had no answer for that. I heard his plan to tackle me, and I quickly had his face pinned to the wall of the clinic.

“You need to leave. NOW,” I hissed in his ear.

“What the hell, man? What is it with your family? Why do you keep trying to scare me away from that girl?” he asked, panic bleeding into his confident air.

“Because you don’t know what’s good for you. Personally, I don’t want to see you hurt, or worse,” I hissed, not hiding the menace in my voice.

“You’re nuts, Edward.” Warren tried to free himself from my grip, and I saw the fear in his eyes when he realized that he’d never be able to shake me off of him. His eyes grew wide, alarmed, and he began to shake.

“Rosalie! Rosalie! Please! Come out and get your crazy cousin off of me!”

I heard Rosalie’s thoughts, and knew she wouldn’t leave the man’s side. Esme ran to the door instead.

“Warren, dear, please, you’re disturbing the ailing man inside,” she stated in a calm, motherly voice.

“Tell your son to let me go, then.”

I released Warren and his legs gave out from under him. He stared, wide-eyed at Esme and I from the spot where he had fallen.

“Now, son, I’m afraid my niece is indisposed at the moment. It won’t do, calling for her like that. If you want to see her, to explain yourself to her, perhaps a letter might be best at this point.” Esme’s voice was sweet as sugar, but I watched her eyes glow, saw the severe set of her face. So did Warren.

Warren scrambled to his feet and took a few steps backwards, tripping over a fallen branch, holding himself upright on a tree trunk.

“Sorry, ma’am. You’re right, I guess. A letter. Can I come tomorrow and give you a letter for her?” Warren was still shaking. Esme’s eyes were still glowing.

“That would be lovely, Warren. I’ll tell Rosalie. She’ll be expecting it. Tomorrow.”

“Thanks Mrs. Cullen, ma’am. I’d appreciate it. I’ll be back. Tomorrow. You have my word. Tell Rosalie she has my word on it.”

“I will, Warren. Have a lovely evening, now.”

*****

After the encounter with Warren, we had no time to lose. On Carlisle’s return, he found that the man’s wounds were nearly healed. The fire within the man was growing hotter, more torturous, and Rosalie was having a harder time keeping him quiet with her presence. The man’s strength was growing and it took both her and Carlisle to hold him down.

We were going to have to leave. Darkness came early in the winter months, but that day it didn’t come a moment too soon.

It was decided that I would hold the man. I was the fastest among us, so his weight would slow me the least. I carefully hoisted him across my shoulders, as Rosalie whispered to him that she would be close by the entire time. We set off for the mountains without looking back. The man’s cries rang out almost immediately. His thoughts lost all coherence. Instead, darkness, fire and the wind raged in his mind’s eye.

We flew along the crest of the mountains, making our way north under the cover of darkness. Our minds were all fixed on the great northern tundra, where humans were sparse and it would be hard to lose the man, with flat white ground stretching hundreds of miles around us in every direction. Before we reached New York, we bore westward through the prairies of southern Illinois and Iowa. It had been only two years since Rosalie was changed and we couldn’t risk someone seeing her, however remote the possibility. We ran north again through Minnesota, finally crossing into Canada by nightfall on the second day.

I felt the subtle changes in the man’s body as I ran with him screaming and kicking across my shoulders. His skin hardened and cooled, his body became heavier, his muscles grew impossibly larger, and his heart grew slower with each mile we put between Cumberland and ourselves. The air grew steadily colder and a human would have been blue with frostbite at this latitude, dressed as he was. But I noticed that the man’s hands were unharmed, and as pale as the snow around us. The sun broke through the clouds, and the light glanced off of his hands and sparkled in my eye. He was nearly changed.

His thoughts crystallized as well, and I listened as he began calculating our speed, our direction, as he discerned three sets of quick footsteps and our separate scents, and I listened to his mind as it called out for his angel to return.

By this time we were in north central Canada, surrounded by flat icy plains, a frozen salt wind blowing from the east. I imagined we must have been somewhere west of Hudson Bay. We ran westward again, hoping to avoid the small human outposts along the coast, knowing that we’d be more isolated the farther inland we traveled.

Then, halfway through the third day, the man’s heart began to slow precipitously. We each heard it, we each slowed our pace, and I stopped and stooped and lowered the man to the ground. He was able to speak again, murmuring a stream of obscenities as he thrashed, his hands clawing the icy ground beneath him. And then in a final flurry, his heart raced toward the end, visibly pounding in his chest, as the man let out a final guttural roar.

Silence. We all held our breaths, crouching, on guard, waiting expectantly for the monster to emerge from the shell of the man.

It took an eighth of a second for the man to jump to his feet. He stood tall, in all of his beautiful, hulking glory: pale and sparkling with severe, symmetrical angles, a mess of thick, black curling hair, and eyes as red as blood. Another eighth of a second and he’d launched himself through the air at us, a low snarl reverberating through the frozen ice of the tundra.

Rosalie stepped in front of Esme, Carlisle and I, into the newborn’s path.

The man stopped, frozen, unmoving. “My angel.” A wordless second passed. Then, the man’s hands came to his throat. “Hell is inside me?”

You could certainly say so.

“You need to drink,” Rosalie explained very quietly. She put out her hand. The man glanced at it for half a second and then took it in his.

“Ouch!” Rosalie showed a flash of anger, but then her face softened. “Gently,” she instructed, quietly. “You’re very, very strong.”

The man loosened his grip.

“Good. Now, I’ll show you,” Rosalie coaxed, pulling him toward the western horizon, where we could detect the faint smell of caribou. I hoped it was a large herd. The man’s pace quickly accelerated as the man got the feel for his new legs. Their silhouettes quickly receded towards the horizon.

Esme spun to Carlisle, alarmed. “We don’t know him. We can’t leave Rosalie alone with him.”

“She can’t control him on her own,” Carlisle agreed. “We should follow at a distance. Edward, please listen to hear if he plans anything untoward.”

We kept a respectful distance and watched the two figures run over the snow and ice, the man jumping from hilltops and tumbling down slopes with a beastly grace. I listened to his newborn thoughts rushing through his brain, unrestrained. He wondered at his speed and his strength, the ability of his eyes to see, his ears to hear, and the all-consuming, burning fire in his throat. But more than all of that, he wondered at his luck in having Rosalie at his side. Indeed, he thought of Rosalie more than anything else, in a way that made me somewhat embarrassed to listen.

I grinned a bit, and Esme and Carlisle’s eyes flew to my face, questioning.

“With the burning, he was sure he was in hell. But now, it’s so white and snowy, yet he’s not cold. He thinks he made it to heaven and that Rosalie is his angel. And Carlisle, he thinks you’re God.”

Carlisle smiled outright.

“Oh, he sounds sweet,” Esme offered. “But, we still can’t leave Rosalie with him.”

“Certainly not,” I agreed. I’d never heard a man dream about doing some of the things this man dreamed of doing to an angel.

A herd of caribou suddenly appeared on the horizon. Rosalie didn’t have to show the man a thing. He let go of her hand and ran at the herbivores with a determined ferocity: an animal, a predator, a monster for sure. He jumped and pounced on the largest of the herd, tore its neck open with his hands, and his growl broke the crystalline silence of the tundra as he buried his head in the creature’s chest, snarls ripping from deep within him.

It was over quickly; the animal lay crushed and mangled at the man’s feet. He scanned the horizon, and saw the retreating herd, and was after them again. When he caught up with them, he knew better the extent of his thirst and took down three in rapid succession, pouncing, breaking their necks one after the other, before he tore into them and drained them dry.

After his fourth caribou, the man stood calmly and blinked.

By then, Esme, Carlisle and I had caught up to the man and Rosalie, and we hung cautiously back, careful not to threaten him.

“What the hell?” the man’s voice rang through the frozen air.

Rosalie smiled. “Feel better?” she asked quietly.

“What’s this all about? The blood?” The man looked at his hands. “Heaven’s not supposed to be like this.”

“You’re one of us now,” Rosalie offered.

“An angel?” The man looked at her, incredulous.

Rosalie giggled, coy, batting her eyelashes. “Like wind chimes,” he thought as Rosalie’s laugh echoed around us.

“No. We didn’t get to talk to you as much while you were changing. We had to move fast.”

“You mean dying?” The man moved so he was within inches of Rosalie’s face. Esme moved to separate them, but I reached out and grabbed her arm.

“He means no harm, Esme. I think Rosalie wants to do this.”

Esme bit her lip and looked away.

“Technically, I guess.” Rosalie reached out and touched the man’s hand again. Again, he grasped it like he was clinging to Rosalie for life. His thoughts spun wildly, and I reconsidered whether or not they should be separated.

“I didn’t know angels smelled so sweet.” “Or looked so beautiful, so goddamned sexy. Oh, damn, I shouldn’t say goddamn about an angel. Or sexy. But lord, look at her. Oh no, where did the lord go? Does he know what I’m thinking?”

I grinned a little. It wasn’t the lord, or Carlisle, that knew what he was thinking.

“Listen, please, and try not to get angry,” Rosalie started again.

“Angry?” “How could I be angry at her? As long as I can touch her like this. And maybe kiss her. Can you kiss an angel?”

“I found you getting eaten by a bear.”

With that, a loud snarl erupted from the man’s throat. He crouch, his fingers extended like claws, he scanned the horizon. But when his eyes fixed on Rosalie in front of him, he relaxed and grinned, almost like a human boy would.

“I remember. I was… hunting, and I’d been… drinking. I shouldn’t ‘a been, I know. I’ve got no excuse, except I kinda’ lost my way these past couple years. It wasn’t what I planned for after high school.”

“I don’t care,” Rosalie nearly whispered, squeezing the man’s hands in hers.

“You forgive me? What about God? Is that why I’m here?”

“Listen, it doesn’t matter. You were almost dead… but for some reason, I couldn’t let you go.”

“I know. You took me with you. I was so surprised. I thought after the past year, all I’ve done, I didn’t deserve an angel.” The man looked around, “or this.”

I watched the world through the man’s eyes. The sparkling rainbows in each flake of snow, the way white glistened, purer than ever and as far as the eye could see, with undertones of blue, gray, and dusky purple. The sunlight shone from below the horizon this far north, making it look like the world was lit from deep within itself. And I saw Rosalie’s face through the man’s eyes. I saw something there I had never seen before: beautiful, thick golden hair, cascading down her back in gentle ringlets, shining like the absent sun on this polar winter day, her skin glistening, sparkling unflawed and brilliant, and her enormous amber eyes, lit with pure love. Sure, it could have been heaven.

“Listen to me, please. I’m not an angel and neither are you.”

The man laughed out loud, a deep and ringing sound that I could see he felt in every cell of his being. You never forget the all-encompassing joy of your first laugh as a vampire. The man held his sides, he bent double, but then he recovered quickly and stared at Rosalie. “I’m no angel. You don’t have to tell me,” he said, grinning broadly.

“I wanted you. It might have been selfish. But, I asked Carlisle to turn you into one of us, in case… maybe you wanted to stay with me… when you woke up.” She sounded shy, biting her lip nervously, as if she was afraid he’d say he didn’t want to stay.

“You like me, then?” His eyes were wide and incredulous, wildly hopeful.

Rosalie smiled. “I don’t know you, but it doesn’t change how I fell about you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Rosalie. Rosalie Hale.”

“Hello, Rose. My name’s Emmett… McCarty.” He’d searched his mind for his last name, and said it like he wasn’t really sure.

“Emmett,” Rose beamed.

“Rose,” he rasped, bringing his mouth within centimeters of hers.

The man, Emmett, took both of Rosalie’s hands in his, smiling into her eyes, pulling her body closer to his. “You like me?”

Rosalie nodded, her eyes never leaving his. “But I have something I need to tell you. You might be angry, and I’d understand.”

I watched Emmett take a deep breath of Rosalie’s scent and he shuddered and brought her hands to his chest. “I couldn’t be angry at you.”

“I’m no angel either, Emmett. I’m a vampire. We’re both vampires, now. I had Carlisle change you.”

Again the man’s laughter echoed around us.

“Like Dracula? That’s funny… Rose. Where are your fangs? Your cape? And shouldn’t you be in a coffin right now? It’s daytime. Or maybe you’ll just up and turn into a bat,” he joked, stroking his thumb over her hand, and reaching his other hand out to grab her waist. As a newborn, he took her waist in his hand a little bit harder than he intended, but Rosalie didn’t seem bothered by the way he grabbed her, almost like a bear pawing his prey. In fact, the sudden path both of their minds took with his touch stunned me, and I worked to pry my mind from theirs.

“Stop joking, sweetheart,” he murmured in a very low, very hushed voice. “You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“It’s no joke, Emmett.” Rosalie struggled to stay focused with the man’s hand on her body. “You’re going to… live, well, kind of, anyway… forever. And you’re going to want to drink human blood.”

The man’s thoughts immediately spun back to the caribou, replaying everything that had happened in exacting, vampire detail. He pulled his hands away from Rosalie, looking at the blood on them, disbelieving, and then licked them and shuddered with pleasure. “I really did that. Goddamn!” His head shot up to peer at Rosalie. “Uh, sorry… for swearing. But, holy hell, did you see what I did?”

“Yes.” Again, Rosalie’s thoughts spun to a place I hadn’t suspected.

Emmett clutched his throat. “And I think I need to do it again.”

“That’s how it is in the beginning,” Rose explained apologetically. “You’re thirsty all the time.”

“The beginning? How long am I going to be like this?”

“Forever, Emmett.”

“With you? Forever?”

Rosalie couldn’t tell if the man was pleased or not about the prospect. It wasn’t my place to cut in and reassure her. She put her hands on her hips. “Well, you don’t have to be with me if you don’t want. But the forever part is certain.”

“How could I want to leave you?” Emmett asked in wonder at the ludicrous idea of ever separating from his angel.

Rosalie’s face broke into the biggest smile I’d seen from her, ever. Emmett inched closer to Rosalie, his mind reeling, breathing in her scent and simultaneously searching out the smell of more blood, torn between the need to feed and his sudden need for…

“I’m sorry, Carlisle. I can’t listen to their thoughts any longer. I think Rosalie is safe with the man - with Emmett, I mean.”

I turned to see Carlisle, his arm around Esme’s shoulders, his other hand clasped in Esme’s, as she looked up at him, both of their eyes sparkling, in that wordless and thoughtless way they were able to communicate. They knew what was happening, they understood better than I ever could. I tried not to listen as they both recalled Esme’s awakening with perfect clarity. This was what they’d wanted for Rosalie and I when she awoke, and it had gone horribly wrong.

But I could see now that it had never been wrong to want this for me. And perhaps Carlisle’s faith hadn’t been ridiculous either. To literally run across a man being torn into pieces by a bear, for this man to be The One. No, it certainly wasn’t misguided for Carlisle to believe in magic, not if this could happen. And I knew, looking at my parents, looking at Emmett and Rosalie as they gazed into one another’s eyes like they were the only two people in the world, that I’d never felt that way, and for all I knew, after seventeen years vampire, maybe I never would.

As much as I tried to give Rosalie and Emmett privacy, his raging thirst made its way into my brain. His need for blood was winning out over his love for Rosalie.

“He needs to feed again,” I hissed to my parents, breaking the spell that held them together.

“We should introduce ourselves, then, before they run off again. Explain things a little more clearly than Rosalie is able to right now,” Carlisle grinned.

“I’ll stay back here, Carlisle. You don’t need me. I don’t want to intrude on their thoughts any more than I already have.”

“No, son, you’re part of this family. He should meet us all, if he’s to make an informed choice about whether to stay.”

“I don’t think he has a choice, now,” Esme murmured, her face lit with joy. “He won’t leave Rosalie, will he?” she asked, smiling at the two figures as they simply stared into one another’s eyes, not moving a muscle.

In response, Carlisle pulled Esme in for a tender kiss, holding her close, and Esme responded with a passion that I hadn’t seen from her since before I’d left, almost ten years ago. I wandered away from the two couples in order to give everyone some privacy. Carlisle and Esme found me half an hour later wandering near an outcropping of jagged gray rocks, and we all made our way, cautiously, to Rosalie and Emmett.

*****

“Oh! God!” Emmett jumped, taking steps steadily backward, trying desperately not to attack what he imagined to be The God. Nevertheless, he couldn’t contain the deep rumble in his chest. I saw his lips grow damp with venom, and he clutched Rosalie’s hand. Her face contorted in pain.

“Please, ease your grip on Rosalie, son,” Carlisle asked gently.

“Yes, Father,” Emmett agreed in a hushed voice, with eyes lowered to the ground. He let go of Rosalie’s hand. Rosalie quickly grabbed it back.

Carlisle couldn’t help grinning. “Please, my name is Carlisle. I hear you are Emmett.”

The man nodded.

“And Rosalie has explained some things to you.”

“She says me and her are vampires.”

“Yes. This is the rest of our family. This is Esme, my wife, and this is Edward.”

Emmett’s eyes quickly flitted between the three of us, until they came to rest on me. Immediately, he crouched, snarled, and pushed Rosalie behind him. “Mine,” he growled.

I fiercely fought my instincts to defend myself, to assert my dominance in this family unit, to show him I could hold my own. Now wasn’t the time. It wouldn’t help. I didn’t want him thinking I wanted Rosalie. I understood his aggression, his territoriality, heard the threat he felt from the presence of another single male within striking distance.

Carlisle stepped between us. “Edward won’t hurt you, son.” He turned to me. “Will you, Edward?”

“No,” I conceded, filled with the desire to trounce the newborn. Wondering at my instinct to exert my superiority. I looked Carlisle in the eye. “Please, son, I understand, you’ll have your chance.”

I contained my instincts and turned toward the man, who was still growling and protecting Rosalie from me. “A pleasure, Emmett. You have nothing to fear from me.”

I saw the startled look in the man’s eyes. His thoughts hadn’t turned back to words yet. But I saw myself acting civilized in his eyes, and it disarmed him, and I felt his distant humanity pull at the back of his brain.

“Edward wouldn’t hurt a fly, if he could help it,” Rosalie whispered to Emmett. “And I can protect myself. Especially from Edward.” Rosalie wound her arm around Emmett’s waist, holding him against her. Emmett’s growl changed slightly, lower, softer, and I wrenched myself out of his mind.

Carlisle made a mental note to proceed quickly.

“Emmett, Rose explained to you that we’re vampires. As such we’re gifted with more speed and strength than you could imagine, and we are very nearly indestructible. But this comes with responsibility. As vampires, we live by one law, to live inconspicuously among humans, avoiding sunlight, and keeping our habits from their eyes.”

“Habits?” he asked, hanging on Carlisle’s every word.

“You will subsist on blood, and blood alone. And if you want to live with this family, you must commit to the consumption of animal blood. We do not kill the humans we live amongst.”

Emmett looked at Rosalie and gulped. “If I’m gonna’ live with you?”

Rosalie giggled and batted her eyes, nodding her head.

Emmett looked down at Carlisle who was standing in his shadow. “Well, if I get to live with Rose here, I’ll do anything.” He turned to gaze in wonder at Rosalie. “I get to live with you… forever?”

Rosalie nodded again, twirling her finger through her hair.

“Well, hell, this is amazing! Oh, uh, sorry Go-, I mean Carlisle,” he mumbled, not meeting Carlisle’s eyes. He turned to Rosalie. “How’d I get so lucky?”

“Lucky?” Carlisle, Rosalie and I thought in unison. We shared the assumption that there was no luck involved in enduring a vampire’s existence. Esme, however, thought that Emmett was lucky indeed to have been found by Rosalie, as lucky as she had been, to be saved from death in order that she might finally know true love.

“And you wanna’ live with me?” Emmett asked, grabbing both of Rosalie’s hands in his, his smile bright and infectious. We all beamed back at the two of them.

“I do,” Rosalie answered breathlessly.

With those two words, Emmett’s lips crashed against Rosalie’s and the sound of granite colliding with granite echoed through the tundra, their teeth clattered, their hands roamed, Emmett pulling Rosalie impossibly close, Rosalie clutched him like she never wanted to let him go. Esme, Carlisle and I turned away.

“Do you feel safe leaving them alone, yet?” Carlisle asked, smiling affectionately at his wife.

“Perhaps we all need some time alone,” Esme answered coyly.

But her thoughts were interrupted by a scent, and scent more potent than any other, coming in our direction out of the east, moving quickly. All of our heads swung eastward, our faces lifted to the salty wind, blowing the scent of human blood and dog in our direction. We heard sleigh bells, dogs barking, a human encouraging them on. Emmett was gone in less than a second, and Rosalie had been flung to the ground.

“Emmett, no!” she cried.

But Emmett was growling, snarling, and running at full speed to intercept the unsuspecting dogsledder. All of us immediately ran after him, but this only seemed to spur him on. I reached him first and jumped, tackling him, pinning his arms to his sides, trying to hold his face in the snow. To dull the scent, I reasoned, with some satisfaction. But he was a newborn, a hulking newborn, and he flipped me beneath him, jabbed an elbow in my neck, stomped on my knee, tore at my hand with his teeth and was up again.

Carlisle caught him next, and Emmett flung him easily out of the way.

“Emmett!” Rosalie’s voice rang out, but he was focused, possessed, running faster.

The human came into view. A sturdy-looking Inuit, dressed in furs, with a pack of six dogs pulling his sled. The dogs sensed us before the human knew what was happening. They barked and tried to scatter, pulling desperately at the lines that held them in place. Finally, when they saw there was no way out, they reared up, snarling and snapping and baring their teeth at the oncoming vampires. The human seemed frozen in place. He had no frame of reference for what was happening, staring in wonder at the oncoming figure in the snowy wasteland.

Finally, Emmett reached the dogs, and tossed them out of his way. The human snapped out of his trance and turned on his heels, but it was much too late. He never really had a chance.

“Emmett, no!” Rosalie called again.

Emmett leapt and landed on top of the man’s back, flung him over, and had his teeth at the human’s throat, snarling. The man’s heart stopped before Emmett’s teeth even entered his neck; scared to death by the enormous hulk of a sparkling, red-eyed man, racing toward him through the winterscape, like Frankenstein’s monster.

When Carlisle and I caught up with Emmett, his eyes were unfocused and he was grunting greedily as he pulled the blood from the human’s neck, clasping and clawing at his flesh reflexively, rhythmically.

“Emmett.” Carlisle’s voice was very soft, very calm, gently coaxing. The snarl that erupted from Emmett’s throat was deadly. I tried to pull Carlisle away. No one else needed to get hurt today.

Rosalie was next to catch up with us.

“Emmett McCarty!” Her voice was anything but gentle.

Emmett’s eyes swung up to meet Rosalie, shocked, wide, his teeth still at the dead human’s neck, blood still flowing down his throat. Venom pooled in my own mouth, fire lapped at my throat, and my body nearly commanded me to tear Emmett from the corpse. Emmett was the newling, that human should be mine. I shook my head in an attempt to lose the killer instinct.

“And you said you wanted to live with me?” Rosalie stomped her foot. “Not like that you won’t!”

Emmett dropped the man’s neck from his jaws, and cradled the dead body awkwardly in his arms.

“And if you think you’re going to kiss me again, well you better find something to wash your mouth out with. I don’t want any of that human’s blood in my mouth, mister!”

“But… but, but have you tasted this?” he asked holding the body out toward her. “Rose, this is the best thing I’ve ever… it’s so warm and salty and… good. Try some.” Emmett emphasized each word by shaking the dead human by the scruff of its neck, and blood coursed over his hand with each strong, jerky newborn movement. Esme had made it to the scene by now and quickly looked away, holding her hand over nose.

“No! Put that down, now, Emmett! I haven’t had human blood and neither has Carlisle.”

Instead of focusing on Rosalie or Carlisle, Emmett’s eyes sought out Esme and I. He focused on me since Esme was turned away. “He must understand, then” Emmett thought, silently pleading for my support. I understood all too well, the half-drained corpse hanging in his hands, red blood spilling onto the white snow, trickling toward my feet.

“Emmett, you just ended that man’s life. He was human, just like you were. Think of how we saved you. This man had a soul, had worth. He could have been a brother, father, son,” Carlisle reasoned.

“How could I not?” Emmett looked down at the fresh corpse again, baring his teeth, a rumble building in his chest, licking his lips.

“It’s me or the humans, Emmett.” Rosalie stared him down, her eyes fierce, flaming gold, and her hands on her hips. But despite her confident stance I could hear her mind. “Please pick me, please pick me, please pick me.”

Emmett instantly dropped the dead body at his feet and was in front of Rosalie, grabbing her arms. In her mind, she fought with herself about whether to shake his hands off or not. “I just got you, I can’t lose you. I’m so sorry. He smelled better than anything… ever. But I’ll try, if it means I get to stay with you,” Emmett begged.

Rosalie smiled begrudgingly, looking up at the hulking muscular mass of a man, smiling at her like such a sweet kid, totally taken with her, blood smeared from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

“Yes!” she thought.

Emmett went in for another kiss. “No way, mister. Not with human blood in your mouth. Not in my mouth, ever.”

Emmett looked around, his eyes settling on the dogs.

“You may as well,” Carlisle offered. “They’re domestic and may not survive alone in the wild.”

“And then you’ll bury that human,” Rosalie chastised.

Emmett licked his lips again with the thought of touching the human. His mind was about equally divided between thoughts of Rosalie and visions of secretly taking down humans behind her back.

“Carlisle, I don’t know if we can do this,” I confided.

“We may need help,” he agreed.

Esme turned to the two of us. “We’ll make this work. We have to, for Rosalie. We’ll get help the same way we always do when someone new joins our family. We’ll go to Denali.”

A/N: Happy Holidays! Hope you like newborn Emmett! He was my original Cullen crush. Oh, and did you notice, I figured out the italics! Finally, the difference between voices and thoughts is clear. Thanks for your reviews. m
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The Newborn	By : belladonnacullen Category: Twilight Series > Het Views: 3452 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or make any money from this story.

The Newborn