Title: Manifesting Destiny

Summary: When Bella travels West to find her father she instead finds herself befriending a man who falls in love with someone else's mail-order bride. A romantic at heart, Bella offers to help the couple and speak to the intended husband. If only he would listen.

Disclaimer: Twilight is owned by Stephanie Meyer.

Chapter Four: Romantic at Heart

The next morning dawned and Bella woke bright and early to the feel of the sun on her skin. Through the partially drawn window shade she looked up at a white, bright but cloudy sky. Overnight they had moved into land covered in a layer of glistening snow, and the filtered sunlight seemed to reflect from everything at once.

Beside her Emmett was latching his bunk back in place, still dressed in his night clothes. It was a strangely intimate sight and she was a little relieved when he gathered his morning necessities and exited the cabin without noticing she had woken.

She dressed quickly and gathered her own morning items, before heading to the washroom herself. When she returned she found Rosalie still asleep and Emmett now returned and sitting once again in his seat, gazing at her.

"Do you suppose we should wake her up?" She asked when he met her eyes.

"No," he replied. "She had a long day yesterday, I think she could use the sleep."

At his reference her curiosity returned full force, warring with her sense of decency. She looked at Rosalie, still sleeping soundly despite the tense set of her eyebrows. Finally she cracked. "Can I ask what happened yesterday?"

She was absolutely determined to not ask another thing if he said not to, but luckily her resolve was not tested when he just sighed, ran a hand through his short, curly hair and began to speak.

Some things he said she had already guessed at. Rosalie and Emmett had been in the main cabin, along with a dozen other passengers. He had noticed her right off because of her uncommon beauty, and so noticed when she left to go to the washroom. His voice hardened when he told of seeing a questionable looking man follow shortly behind her. When neither returned after a few minutes, his sense of foreboding had carried him out of the cabin as well.

He skimmed details, seeming not to want to think on it at all, but Bella got the gist. He had found exactly what he had hoped not to and he had intervened. His left hand unconsciously skimmed over the knuckles of his right hand as he talked.

The noise drew a train employee, who arranged to have the man removed from the train, as well as the ticket taker, through whom Emmett had paid immediately to upgrade his and Rosalie's tickets to get her out of the main cabin and somewhere more private.

"I was going to just switch hers, but she wouldn't let go of my hand, and honestly I didn't really want to let her out of my sight. I figured she'd feel better with another woman around after all that mess." Bella nodded her head in agreement with his words, understanding now what had led to the two of them joining her in the cabin.

She thought back to the platform in Chicago. It had been mostly empty, the wrong season for travel as the man at the ticket counter had mentioned when she asked about seating arrangements. There had only been about three dozen people waiting to board where she had, and she'd noticed even then the general lack of women and the overabundance of roughened, working men.

At the time she hadn't noticed Rosalie, or Emmett for that matter-perhaps they had boarded elsewhere-but she had no trouble at all believing that if he had been searching for two seats in a cabin with only women, hers might well have been the only choice.

Shortly after their talk Rosalie woke, leaving them to quit the topic and move on to other things. The day passed smoothly, the silences much less awkward and the conversation much less stiff. Bella told them about the stories she'd been reading in the penny westerns, which Emmett made great fun of as it turned out he was returning to a home out there and felt he was an expert on the topic of all things western, even those that did not have anything to do with the area he lived in. Bella and even at times Rosalie dissolved into laughter at his grandstanding, which only encouraged his efforts.

As the days of travel passed, Bella revealed that she was in a sense returning home as well, though to what she was not sure. When she mentioned Forks Emmett had quizzed her for nearly an hour on what she could remember. Apparently he was from nearby, having worked as a logger north of her hometown before a death in the family drew him East. He said he now planned to buy up some land and set up a house, maybe try his hand at farming. If Rosalie noticed his furtive look toward her when he mentioned settling down in a house of his own making, she didn't let on, seemingly lost in her own thoughts on the subject.

For their part Bella and Emmett failed to find much overlap in their knowledge. He had been living at a camp a half day's ride from the town of Forks after all, and had not spent much time there. She had been so young when she moved that all she could offer was her father's name, which he did not recognize, and the vague memories of big trees.

Rosalie listened intently to their talk, and surprised them both by announcing that she too was headed to the area. The sheer, childlike happiness that overtook Emmett's face when he heard that news was extinguished rather abruptly when she went on to say that she was to be married when she arrived, and his expression darkened further when she named a Mr. Edward Cullen as her soon-to-be-husband.

Bella watched all this and the way her two companions gazed at each other, and felt a determination growing in her. She couldn't help but think there was some fate at work here, throwing the three of them together as they traveled halfway across the country to nearly the same place.

Despite her unusual upbringing and fascination with adventure stories, she was at heart a romantic. Traveling all this way had given her a sense of independence and power, she felt accomplished with herself. All this combined as she watched Rosalie and Emmett gaze and blush at each other, and by the time the end of the line approached she was determined that not only was fate throwing them together for a reason, but that it had thrown her in too to make sure everything worked out.

When morning dawned on the last day of the trip, Bella looked at her disheartened friends and made her decision. She would help these two stay together, now they just needed a plan.