Hi everyone! It's a little bit slow going with the other stories I had in mind to write slash am working on, so I thought writing something like this might help me through the writer's block. Cut me some slack on the lame title... It takes place in Rochester, probs in the early 1930's or so, when Rosalie came to the Cullen clan :) Enjoy! And as always, help a sister out and review! Oh, and again, as always, I own nothing but Ellie. Durr.

The Second Sister

Ellie was startled awake early one morning. She could immediately sense something wasn't right in the house on the outskirts of Rochester, New York. She pulled her dressing gown over her white nightgown, and stuck her head out her bedroom door. Something smelled horrible, and it was coming from the downstairs dining room.

She tiptoed barefoot down the wooden stairs. The whole house reeked, actually. It was an awful combination of sweet, rotting garbage and something incredibly putrid. Like how she expected a decaying carcass would smell. Or better yet, like the stench that her family sometimes brought in with them after hunting.

She had her hands on the French doors leading into the dining room. The weak morning sun was beginning to brighten the house, but made everything an eerie shade of blue-gray. She could hear the hushed voices of her parents. Edward wasn't home—he had left last night to go hunting—and she wondered where he was and if he was in some kind of trouble.

Ellie cautiously opened the door, and her parents' heads snapped up in her direction. They were alarmed by her presence and looked slightly guilty about something. Until she looked at the table behind them, she couldn't figure out why.

What she saw there made her heart stop and all the air whoosh out of her lungs. She clapped a hand over her mouth, and felt bile rise up in the back of her throat from the overpowering stench.

Splayed across the dining room table, which was covered with a white linen tablecloth, was the corpse of Rosalie Hale. The beautiful dress she wore was ripped and muddy, and slightly wet from the slush that still covered the ground.

Ellie was speechless, for once in her life. Her eyes were wide as they flew from Carlisle to Esme and back to Carlisle again. Her father's eyes were an odd color. They were still light brown, as they had been beforehand, but now had the slightest red hue to them. They were deep amber, and it was unnerving.

The frequent changes in her family's eye color meant one thing and one thing only—a change in diet. When they were hungry, their eyes became a deep black. When they had just hunted, they were a pleasant, light topaz color. And she had been told that if they were to feed on humans, their eyes would become a deep red.

But it didn't make sense. First, Carlisle's eyes still had some semblance of brown to them. Secondly, Carlisle was constantly surrounded by blood every day at his job. It wouldn't be logical for him to have simply slipped up and accidentally fed on some girl. Not just any girl for that matter, but a girl from one of the town's most well-known families. Also, Carlisle had the greatest self control she had ever seen. Something wasn't right.

All these thoughts flashed in a split second, maybe in the amount of time it would have taken a human to blink. In this time, her parents eyed each other nervously.

"What happened?" Ellie managed to sputter out through her hand. She knew her parents could hear her, though.

Carlisle and Esme exchanged a look, and Esme proceeded to explain.

"Ellie, baby. Carlisle was taking a walk in town early this morning, and came across Miss Hale's body. Someone had attacked her, and left her for dead. He brought her back here. He did what he thought was best."

"What he thought was best?" Ellie repeated, processing what her mother was saying. She looked at Rosalie's neck, and sure enough, there were perfectly symmetrical teeth marks there. "You mean, you bit her? She's going to become a vampire now?" She asked of Carlisle. Her eyes were so wide, she felt like they would pop out of their sockets at any moment.

Carlisle nodded. "Her injuries were extensive, and she would have died within moments if I hadn't done it."

Ellie was still frozen in shock, but she could accept that her father had done what he thought was best. She couldn't decide whether she was angry or not. She guessed this must have been what happened with Esme, and that seemed to turn out well. "So what's going to happen now?"

Her parents seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Esme crossed the room and wrapped a strong, cold arm around her shoulders. Ellie shivered under her thin robe, and crossed her arms tightly to her body. Just because she understood why Carlisle did it didn't mean she approved of it. The whole situation made her feel uneasy.

"Well, honey," Carlisle started explaining. "It should take about three days for the venom to circulate throughout her body. When she wakes up, she will be like us. There will be a few differences, but she'll be a regular part of our family within a few months. A year at most."

"What kind of differences?" Ellie asked, slightly worried.

"She'll be extremely thirsty, and she might be slightly aggressive for a bit. Her eyes will be bright red as well. It's only temporary, though. She should outgrow those characteristics within a year, at the longest." Carlisle stopped, and assessed her reaction.

There was a long silence as Ellie considered the possibility of having a new sister. Selfishly, she was excited, but at the same time nervous for Rosalie's reaction to the whole situation. It seemed unfair to her that Rosalie had no choice in the matter. She understood Carlisle was trying to save the girl, but she also wondered what would happen if Rosalie didn't want to be a vampire.

That's when she noticed that Rosalie's heart was still beating, albeit faintly. Ellie stepped closer to the body on the table, transfixed by the sound, and cautiously pressed her hand against the girl's chest. Sure enough, there was a small patter against her palm. Her body was cool, but still warmer than the rest of her family's.

Ellie tucked a blood-stained strand of blond hair behind Rosalie's ear, and her heart swelled for the girl. She was about her and Edward's age. Or at least the age they were pretending to be here. Rosalie looked like she was sleeping peacefully, but she was covered in bloodied gauze from head to foot.

The bite mark on her neck wasn't the only injury she had sustained over the course of the night, Ellie noticed as she made a silent survey of the girl. Ellie tried to imagine what happened to her, and she wondered if Carlisle and Esme were withholding information from her.

Ellie was carefully brushing Rosalie's hair with her fingers. Rosalie was like the doll she never had as a child. "Is Edward here?"

"No," Esme said softly. Ellie could sense her parents watching her every move. "He went hunting before Carlisle left. I don't know when he's coming back." Ellie nodded, and crossed the room to leave as a thought came to her.

"Where are you going?" Esme asked concernedly, and Ellie shrugged.

"I'm going to go get something for her to wear. When I came to the family, you cleaned me up nicely and took care of me. I figure it's the least we can do for her."

At that, both parents beamed at her. She smiled at them to show her acceptance of the situation, and then bounded up the stairs to her room. She rooted through her closet for the nicest dress she owned, and got a warm bucket of water and a sponge.

Ellie hadn't left Rosalie's side since she had discovered her in her dining room. Ellie realized that there was a big chance Rosalie wouldn't accept being a vampire as kindly as Edward and Esme apparently had, and she wanted to be there to help the transition, just in case. Ellie had gotten along with Rosalie Hale well enough when she was a human, and she wanted her to feel warm and welcome in her home.

It was the start of day three when Ellie was startled awake from her sentinel's post beside the dining room table. Edward had finally returned from his hunting trip, and was currently arguing loudly with Carlisle in the sitting room.

Checking Rosalie over, Ellie noticed that her wounds had finally healed. Actually, they had completely disappeared, seemingly overnight. She deftly removed the remaining gauze patches that more protected the silk dress Ellie had dressed her in than her actual wounds. Vampire venom would take care of that. She noticed today that Rosalie's heart had finally given up its struggle, and went to inform Carlisle of the change.

"Rosalie Hale, Carlisle?! What were you thinking?" Edward's voice assaulted her as she approached the sitting room. Apparently he was home finally from his hunting trip. "I can't imagine a single worse addition to our family. She has got to be the most stuck up, selfish individual I have ever met. There is no way."

Ellie cleared her throat at the doorway, and both men whipped around to look at her. Carlisle stepped forward.

"Rosalie's heart stopped beating, and her wounds are healed. I thought you would want to know."

"Yes, thank you, Ellie." Carlisle nodded curtly, and exited quickly with Esme, who had been watching the exchange wordlessly from a distance.

The air was tense in the room, and Ellie could tell her parents were shaken by what had just occurred as they left. Ellie turned to her brother questioningly. He was still upset. He ran his fingers through his hair, and plopped down in an armchair.

Instead of answering her curious face with words, he replayed the scene that had apparently transpired immediately before she had woken up. Although neither parent mentioned it to him when they told him what had happened, he heard their thoughts. They thought Rosalie would make a good companion for Edward. A mate, so to speak. That was apparently what had been going through Carlisle's head when he found Rosalie. Ellie had had her suspicions on the matter, and she sighed at their confirmation.

Edward's disgust at the situation made his temper flare up at the both of them, resulting in the first disagreement Ellie had ever witnessed in their family in the five years she had considered herself a Cullen. Ellie wondered what exactly her parents were thinking as the scene playing for her ended. Then again, they hadn't heard her brother's thoughts and judgments about the Hales like she had.

"Oh, Edward. They didn't know, it's not their fault," she said soothingly as she perched herself on the arm of the chair he was sitting in and placed her palm on his back.

"I know," he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "It just gets to be too much sometimes, hearing everyone's thoughts. I can't think of a girl I hate more than that one." He gestured roughly toward the dining room. "At the very least, they could have asked."

"Hate is a strong word, Edward." Ellie rubbed her brother's back soothingly. She seemed to be the sole person who was ever able to calm him down when he got agitated like this. "Maybe you just need to get to know her. Carlisle did what he thought was best for her; just like he did what he thought was best for you and for Esme. He was trying to help. Give her a chance. It will be nice to have a new personality in the family, at the very least."

At this, Esme reentered the room smiling. "She's awake, and she wants to meet you both," she announced.

That's all she wrote, folks! Thanks for reading! :)