My disclaimer from the last chapter still applies.

Emmett POV:

"Rose?" Carefully, my eyes never leaving her face, I stood up from where I had fallen - well, been pushed, really - on the floor. I watched, saddened, as she backed up from me, pulling as far as she could into the corner of the room. Sheesh, I didn't think I was that bad of a kisser. But as I watch her sink down, curling herself into as tight of a ball as she can manage, I know it goes deeper than that.

I've always been a hunter. I still have memories - fuzzy memories, true, but memories all the same - of my Pa demonstrating various trapping techniques while my three-year old self looked on in awe. Now that I'm a vampire, all of my senses have gotten stronger, more fine tuned, turning me into the world's most deadly predator. I've seen the look in animals' eyes when they know they're going to die. They get this wild look, start breathing heavy, and almost always try to run. Even when they don't know who I am or what's going on, they run with their legs trembling, with their lungs gasping for breath.

Death spurs panic in it's purest form. I cause death.

I know panic when I see it.

Staring across the room at the lovely vampire shaking in the corner - her eyes wild, her arms crossed over herself as if she could shield herself from everything that might attempt to hurt her, her head shaking in denial - I realize that I'm going to have to take this very carefully.

Slowly, I get my feet under me and begin to stand. Instantly, her eyes snap up to mine and I freeze.

Panic.

Slowly, deliberately, I raise my hand in a universal gesture of surrender and rearrange myself so that I'm sitting across from her. Her eyes soften an almost unnoticeable amount, but she does not relax in the slightest. Her panic hasn't gone, it has merely transformed itself into fear. Fear of what? I can only assume that it's fear of me. A shard of pain worms its way through my heart.

From the first moment I saw her, I have been completely and irrevocably in love. As the bear cut me to shreds, I was sure that I was going to die, probably slowly and torturously, I had given up for the first time in my life. I accepted my death as pure, hard fact. Regrettable, yes. Worth fighting? No.

And then I saw her face.

And my whole world flipped upside-down.

I thought she was an angel. At first, all I could focus on was her face. Then I realized that this angel was speaking to me. I figured I'd better pay attention.

"Hang on, please hang on. Just for a little while, just until I can reach Carlisle. Please, please, just don't die."

An angel shouldn't sound so desperate; it was wrong. I was racking my brain to figure out what I could do to stop her pain. Well, she wanted me to hang on. So I did.

Throughout the journey back to Carlisle, throughout the agony of my transformation, throughout the confusion, throughout the pain, I held on.

Because what my angel wants, my angel gets.

When the burning was finally over, I opened my eyes and saw my angel again, only this time, I could see everything. My senses were at least ten times better than they had been. I was told that I was a vampire and that I would have to drink blood now. I was told that I would never age. I was told that I could never see my family again.

It didn't really bother me, though. I mean, if my angel was a vampire, then how bad could it be?

As time passed and we got to know each other and actually talk to each other, I just kept falling more and more in love. I'd thought that she had started to feel the same. So when the opportunity came along for me to kiss her today, when all the others were out hunting and we were watching t.v. together on the couch, I didn't even think. I just kissed.

Apparently she did not feel the same way after all.

Which led to me on the floor, watching the love of my life having a panic attack across the room from me.

I ached to hold her, to take away whatever pain she was experiencing. But that would only hurt her. As it was, her eyes darted nervously towards me whenever I so much as shifted my weight. But I couldn't just do nothing.

After a long, tense minute of silence, I decided to speak up. I make sure to keep my voice as gentle and nonthreatening as possible.

"I'm sorry."

Disbelief flashed across her face, quickly followed by confusion warring with anger.

"You're sorry?!" Her incredulous voice finally made itself known.

I eyed her carefully. I was no expert on emotions, but it looked to me like anger was winning the war to be the dominant emotion on her face.

"Yes. That was out of line. I shouldn't have kissed you, no matter how much I wanted - still want - to. I..." here my voice broke a little bit. I winced.

Man up, Emmett.

"I love you Rosalie. I have since the first moment I saw your face. I had hoped..." the pain dug a little deeper into my heart. "...that you felt the same. I shouldn't have assumed and I'm sorry."

Dang. I think that was the most articulate I have been in my entire life. I hoped she appreciated it. Maybe I would still be allowed to be near her at least.

"Let me get this straight." Crap, anger was definitely winning out. "I selfishly condemn you to this life, I encourage your love, when I'm not even sure if I'm capable of loving you back, I practically kick the others out so I can have alone time with you, even though none of them actually wanted or needed to hunt, and then I spazz out over a simple kiss, and YOU are sorry?!"

Apparently, I had upset her. Huh. And here I'd always thought that girls liked it when you admitted you were wrong and apologized. I pondered what to say for a tenth of a second or so. Better to keep it simple.

"Yes?" It came out like a question.

Her mouth dropped for a second as she stared at me incredulously. Then, she snapped it back into place and slowly started to shake her head back and forth.

I shifted to move closer to her, forgetting momentarily that that was a bad idea. Instantly she curled farther into herself, her eyes trained on my every movement. I carefully shifted back to where I was before. She looked vaguely relieved.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Rose."

The quiet words, which surprised me even as they came out of my mouth, seemed to spark something in her. She glanced at me with tired, resigned eyes.

"No." she whispered. "No, not intentionally anyway." She sighed. "I haven't been entirely fair to you, Emmett. I let you fall in love with me, I encouraged it even. But I didn't let you really see me, really know me. Not really. I am entirely too selfish to be good for you." Her mouth twisted into a slightly bitter smile as she glanced up at me. "I think it's about time you heard my story."

"Your story?" I asked, a bit stupidly, yes, because she had just said that, but this was huge. She had never discussed her past with me, never even come close. All I knew was that she was from New York and that her past was a touchy subject.

She faintly smiled. "Yes, my story." Her lower lip caught between her teeth. "It's just...I don't know where to start. I've never told anyone. Edward, of course, knows, and he was good enough to explain to Carlisle and Esme tactfully. Well," she rolled her eyes, "as tactfully as Edward can anyway..." her voice trailed off as she gave me a worried look. I thought for a second.

"Well, if I were you," I started hesitantly, "I would just...start to talk."

She glanced up at me, surprised. And then she started to talk. And I listened.

And as I listened, I got angrier and angrier. How could he? How could that despicable excuse for a human being do that to my Rose? Didn't he know that an angel deserves to be treated better than that? Didn't he realize what he had?

We sat there, Rosalie talking, me listening, for hours. Sometimes, she would just stop and stare off into the distance, lost in her memories. I let her struggle through it. And then I brought her back to me. I would not let my angel stay lost for long. She would smile a little sheepishly and continue on. She talked about her transformation. She talked about finding me.

"I just...I couldn't give you up. I couldn't. You looked so like little Henry, I could see your dimples, even while you were grimacing in pain. I knew that if I let that bear have his way with you, then you would die. And I couldn't let that happen. I knew that I had to have you with me."

"Do you love me?" It was the only time I interrupted her story. I knew that this was about her right now, but I needed to know.

She looked at me helplessly. "I-I don't know! It's so frustrating. I'm not capable of love, not anymore, not after what Royce did to me. But at the same time...at the same time I can't let you go." I nodded thoughtfully.

Eventually, she reached the end of her story. "You see, Emmett? I'm no angel. I'm a selfish, self-absorbed, vain creature who was too prideful to admit her own downfall. I played it over and over again in my mind. I will never forget it. I suppose it made me bitter." Here she laughed with no amusement in her tone. "But really...I'm broken, Emmett. I'm damaged goods. And I don't think anyone can ever fix me." She fell silent, taking a deep breath before glancing up at me to gauge my reaction. I thought for a moment.

"But you saved me anyway."

That was not what she had been expecting.

"Pardon?"

"May I...?" I indicated that I wanted to come closer to her and, slowly, she nodded. I carefully crawled over to where she was and - finally - held her close.

"You saved me anyway. You say that you're incapable of love. I don't think that's true. Because you wanted it enough to try. You wanted me enough to try, enough that you didn't let that bear eat me, enough that you ran hundreds of miles with me bleeding in your arms without giving in and sucking all my blood yourself. You wouldn't have done that if you weren't passed all hope."

She started shaking her head in denial half-way through my answer.

"Emmett I'm broken. Weren't you listening? I can never give you all of myself because all of me is in little tiny pieces scattered who knows where."

"So let me fix you. Just because one disgrace of a human being treated you like you and your feelings weren't worthy of consideration doesn't make you any less of a woman Rose. Let me in, let me love you. Trust me, babe, I've had some ups and downs in my life. But I know that when life starts to work itself out, you need to let it. I will wait however long it takes for you to be comfortable Rosalie. I will not leave you, I don't care how badly you think of yourself."

She stared at me for a long moment, and if she had been human, then I'm sure tears would be streaming down her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a half-strangled "why?"

I didn't miss a beat.

"Because you're worth it, angel."

A/N: Please review.