A/N:
Elfspirit7- I feel sorry for you, but I think you'll feel a lot better once the year is done and dusted. Good luck with exams.
Did you guys know tiger sharks eat each other in the womb or something? Isn't that crazy? Anyway, this chapter has some important stuff.
Chapter 3:
Oh my god. I chuckled inwardly at Alice's ever tactful way of breaking the news. The temperamental blonde's eyes narrowed dangerously, and the threatening posture put me on alert. The brunette's mouth gaped open in surprise before she spluttered, looking like she gained some courage.
"He is not your mate!" She repeated, chest puffing out in bravery. I held in my laugh. What is she trying to do? Make herself look bigger? A silence descended on the room after her outburst, and Rosalie looked surprised. I coughed slightly, and they both turned to look at me, Alice seemed chagrined, and Rosalie was showing the beginnings of going into a fit of rage. Rosalie poked Alice in the shoulder violently.
"What the fuck is your problem?" the blonde hissed at the brunette, and Alice let out a nervous chuckle, it looked like she was withering under her true mate's stare. I felt awkward sitting there so I delicately made my way over to Alice's wardrobe, looking for a chest that would help Alice explain herself. I could hear their voices as they spoke.
"I- I mean, you're not his!"
"You've finally lost it, haven't you?"
"I'm not crazy! You're mine and Bella's!" Alice sounded genuinely upset, and I finally caught sight of the corner of the chest hidden under bags of clothes. I easily hauled the heavy chest out from its hiding place and opened it up to check what was inside. Nodding at the contents, I started lugging it back out.
"What the hell are you talking about? I'm Emmet's mate!"
A threatening growl erupted from the smaller girl as I entered the room again. She bared her teeth and looked about ready to launch herself at the blonde, but a grabbed her shoulder, pushing her down.
"I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Alice, Rosalie. You are mates, along with my sister, Isabella." I said, opening the chest and moving out of the way to let Alice plunge into the contents. Rosalie looked at me and her brow knitted together, I gave her an apologetic look and gestured to the chest, and she flicked her cat like eyes to the small brunette on the floor who was pouring the contents of the chest onto the floor.
"Did you two just say I am mates with not only Alice but someone else?" The blonde said hesitantly. I nodded, and she shook her head.
Alice seemed to take a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry… just, come sit down with me? I'll explain everything." She asked, and the vulnerability in her eyes was obvious as she touched the floor next to her, it was difficult to ignore. Rosalie's eyes softened slightly, and she gingerly sat down on her heels next to the smaller brunette. I quietly excused myself in the private moment, though they didn't seem to hear me as Alice passed an aged photograph to Rosalie.
I slid quietly out the door.
xXx
Alice PoV
Rosalie sat quiet as she stared at the worn photograph for almost three minutes. I started to get nervous when she didn't say anything. I swallowed slightly, and that's when she seemed to remember that I was there.
"Who is this?" she asked, and I looked at the photograph.
It was aged, the edges were frayed slightly but the image was clear black and white. I remember it being taken in the chill of April, evidence in the lit fireplace just visible on the edge of the picture. It was a photograph Jericho had taken after walking in on the three of us. Bella, the tallest, was asleep on her side with her arm thrown over the human Rosalie, who had her back to Bella and her arm curled around me. Both Rosalie and I were awake, Rosalie's hair tumbled around her head like an angelic halo, my hair was messed and ruffled, and Bella's long locks were splayed along her pillow. The same coy grin lit Rosalie's face as it had always done and my lips were curled up at the edges.
Rosalie's finger pointed at Bella's sleeping face, and I smiled slightly. "That's our Bella." I murmured affectionately. "Let me tell you about her… and us."
xXx
A silence had descended and so had the sun by the time I had finished talking. The whole time Rosalie had sat statue still and she had said nothing as I passed her objects and photographs that Jericho had managed to take.
"So… that night… these things attacked. Bella went out to fight them. She sent Jericho to get both of us. Jericho found you first and that's when you had a vision that I… that I had been…" she choked slightly. I nodded.
"And you couldn't come find me because you would've killed me… but you saw I would've lived if you left me." She said, finally looked up to gaze into my eyes. Her lower lip trembled slightly, my heart clenched in response.
"By the time you had managed to find me again, I was married to Emmet. You don't know where Bella is, but you know she is alive and searching for us." She finished. I nodded slightly. She seemed to be in deep though for a moment.
"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" she croaked.
Why hadn't I? Maybe it was because when I managed to find her, she was so wrapped up in him that she didn't pay me any mind. Maybe it was because I found her happy, and I was so scared that I would somehow destroy that happiness if I told her. Maybe I was frightened that she would send me away and I would be left alone. How could I stand losing her a second time? I could barely handle the first.
"I was afraid." I said, and it was true. Rosalie seemed to stare at me a long time, I felt as if she was examining my soul. Her shoulders lowered and her voice quivered.
"I feel as though there are these areas of my memory that have just blanked out completely. Some things you have said feel so, so familiar, but I cannot grasp them." her dainty hands reached up to rub her eyes.
Ii was torn between euphoria and sadness that she had not sent me away, though had not remembered her past. The obvious pain in her voice seemed to tear at the beast inside me, and I longed to reach out and wrap my arms around her, though I had no idea if I was even allowed to touch her any more. I had no idea where we stood with each other.
I had no recollection of my human life, though Edward has once told me that looking back it was as if he was remembering with a veil over his eyes. He could hear things but to see details was so different now that sometimes it just slipped away. Rosalie sat hunched over, her brow wrinkled and her eyes squeezed shut as if she was trying desperately to remember something- anything. She shuddered, opened her eyes, and looked deeply into mine.
For a split second a flicker of hope lit up within me that she had remembered something- a small chunk of anything. She shook her head slightly, exhaling a shuddering breath and with the small and shaky exhale my hope was snuffed out like a candle in a breeze.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered, and a sat still for a moment registering what she had said. I looked at her, stunned. She looked so apologetic and the way she looked at me now was much different than the way she looked at me the day before.
She looked at me with sad, sad eyes. It was the first time that Rosalie had looked so open and vulnerable. It was the most stunning that I had ever seen her, because in that moment I swear that I wasn't looking at the guarded and secretive Rosalie who tore people up with words and spearing looks. I was looking at the Rosalie that I had met years ago- the real Rosalie, the one I fell in love with. The one with open eyes that was capable of looking at my face and seeing my soul.
The Rosalie who was looking at me then.
At that very instant something inside my chest heaved and seized, because Rosalie never deserved to feel sorry, or sad, or frustrated. And I swore that it would never happen again, that I would never leave her again.
Rosalie's lower lip trembled violently, and in the next moment I was wrapped around her the best I could with my smaller frame.
"Don't be sorry." I cooed gently, rubbing from elbow to shoulder, shoulder to back. She smelled so good, like chocolate, strawberry, and coincidentally enough roses. I inhaled greedily, like I had wanted to do for years now but was unable to.
I didn't expect her to stay in my embrace for long, so when she tucked her head into the crook of my neck and clenched the sides of my shirts into fists and bought me closer, I was surprised. I had expected anger in some- any- form, but it did not come. Her body shook slightly under the weight of her sobs, and garbled words tumbled from velvety lips that danced against my neck.
"I don't… I don't remember." She blubbered, almost incoherently. I had no idea how to calm her now, but I knew what calmed her when she was human, and I began a soft rumble in my chest that I had taught myself before I had met Bella, when I needed to sound bigger than I really was. It didn't serve the same purpose when I met Rosalie, when it was done to soothe.
A few moments after it had started, Rosalie seemed to quiet and press her soft cheek into my shoulder, folding in on herself.
I don't know how long we sat there. Probably because the smell of the blonde saturated my lungs, the only things I could hear was the soft breaths against my ear, and all I could see was the delicate tumble of blonde curls against a porcelain neck.
I did know that despite the pain that seemed to at that moment overwhelm the both of us, I was the happiest I had been in a long time.
I think it was because I felt that I had somehow gotten a piece of my Rosalie back, and she had taken a piece of me.
xXx
A/N:
Just a heads up that this fic is planned out for an estimated 40 chapters or more.
Read and review? A review a day makes my typing okay!
^that was the lamest rhyme I have ever done.
