**I've moved to .net/~allhalerosalie ; watch that space for more!
It wasn't easy to adjust to the new body in the house. I had grown accustomed to our little family of four, Carlisle, Esme, Edward and I, and the arrival of Emmett had thrown the arrangement into a strange disarray. There was no longer an even divide, two men, two women; there was another man, a newborn. I felt guilty for a long time because of the way I kept myself distanced from him, inadvertently putting my family out; after all, I had chosen him - my family hadn't been seeking another member. It was my doing. They picked up my slack, the good people they are, and helped him to adjust to life as a Cullen. In the meantime, I shut myself off.
The day I learned Carlisle had changed me not only to save me, but to provide a potential partner for his son, Edward, was a difficult day for me for a number of reasons. As I had felt passed from one person's control to the next throughout my human life, so I believed I had been taken from my rightful death and presented as a gift to a man who would not have me. Not only had I been offended, but I had been hurt; to think, the physical traits that had been the basis of my self-worth and pride were not enough to satisfy a prospective mate. I didn't want to give Edward the chance to realize that the part of me I could barely stand to know myself, the inside of me, could be just as disappointing. He was a judgmental, temperamental man, and I couldn't bear to have him know my innermost self, know my secrets, and think on them as he had the rest of me. I learned quickly to close myself to him. It was only natural that I closed myself to all others; Emmett was no exception, though it felt strange.
I had found Emmett, dying as he had been, and the moment I looked into his face I knew he was for me. I knew, somehow, that I was for him, too. In my panic to save his life, I hadn't considered just what that could mean for either of us. I wasn't ready to be in a partnership; the brutality I had faced in my last hours as a human were enough to see me swearing off intimacy for eternity. I never wanted to be that vulnerable again, never that naïve; being alone was easier than being destroyed. I found in the weeks that followed his change that I had perhaps been hasty in leaping to the assumptions I had when I had found his broken body in the mountains. We were not a bubblegum-sweet couple, jumping the threshold of our new life, hand-in-hand; we were two strangers, outsiders in an adoptive family, and neither of us knew our place. Perhaps neither of us had one.
He was a young man when he was created, with all the desire and haste and passion of one, characteristics that when coupled with his newborn traits should have seen him reacting to me in a way I couldn't accept, a way that would frighten and alienate me. What was surprising, however, was just how unlike such a description he was. With the exception of our first few moments together following his transformation, he had done nothing to make me ill-at-ease. I had taken some of his actions as frightening, though I understood that it was because I felt vulnerable in his presence by virtue of his sheer mass. He was a newborn, enormous, tall and strong, and I knew that if he wanted to he could break me in any way he desired. I jumped when he appeared soundlessly in shared spaces; I shied away when we became too physically close. It was never him, though - he was as careful to not upset my boundaries as I was to protect them.
It surprised me as much as him, then, the first day he broke through, if only briefly. I don't even remember what we'd been discussing, though we had been sitting as we often did in the family room. We had not yet been in each other's bedrooms; in fact, we hadn't yet been in any space that wasn't shared by the family. We were talking comfortably, spending time in a way I'd come to appreciate more than I could say. We discussed safe topics, unemotional, prescribed, but it was good. It was better than good; we were coming to know one another, though we knew very little about who the other truly was. It was an ease into life as The Others.
On this particular day, he'd made me laugh for the first time since I'd been changed. The sound was foreign, though musical, bubbling out of me, unexpected and so good I felt delirious with momentary contentment. It had been some ridiculous joke, some corny line, and it had hit me just right; the feel of the laugh leaving my lips was like a drug. I smiled at him, broad and genuine, and he seemed taken off-guard, smiling back, though confused. Though I know his reaction was justifiable, given I had been a stone-faced effigy of my former self since the day we'd met, I felt self-conscious. I replaced my mask, gesturing for him to continue, and listened as he had eased back into conversation.
When the conversation had ended, Esme calling us into the dining room to discuss an upcoming hunting trip, I stood. Emmett watched me as I did, looking at me in a way that had at one point made me anxious, though not because it was him - it would have done had it been any person - though this time, it set butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I headed toward the dining room, and before I passed him, I leaned down and kissed his cheek, soft and quick, over in the blink of an eye. He hadn't followed me for a long moment after that.
The ice had broken when I'd kissed his skin for the first time; I felt the feelings I had toward him and surrounding him begin to come together, making sense in my mind, though simultaneously throwing them into disarray. With each day that passed, each week, month, I became more comfortable with him. I still kept myself safely shut away, though bit by bit I found him peeling away the layers, or perhaps it was my doing all along; perhaps I just needed an excuse, and to say he had found the way in made it easier on my stubborn, scared self. Whichever it was, however it was moving, it was. I found myself making little gestures now and then to illustrate how I felt, whether it was a hand on his arm, or allowing our thighs to touch when we sat side-by-side, or giving a small smile when I noticed him watching me. It came slowly, though it came, and the more it did, the more I wanted it to.
It was with a rush of anticipation that I watched Emmett enter the family room one February afternoon, a book in his hand, the suggestion of time to spend reading leaving his lips. I agreed more than happily; a safe activity for the two of us, I'd found, was reading together, taking turns reading aloud to one another from any number of the books in Carlisle's extensive library. Sometimes we read snippets of textbooks; sometimes we read essays. We seemed to most enjoy reading literature, however, and today he'd brought Robert Louis Stevenson. I shifted my position on the couch, putting down the automobile manual I'd been examining and making room for Emmett to sit. I raised my eyebrows, taking in the book he held in his hand. A subtle rush of excitement rose in me; I happily anticipated the coming hours.
"Anything good?"