Chapter 4 – Everything I Need

Rosalie's already home when I get there, so I park the Jeep beside her BMW and hurry up the front steps and inside. "Hey, I'm home!" I toss my keys on the sideboard and then, hearing a noise from downstairs, I hover by the open basement door. "Are you down there?"

"I'm putting on a load of laundry, I'll be up in a minute," Rosalie voice drifts upwards.

I don't go downstairs. Rosalie and I have lived in my childhood home for years and I love it here, but I still avoid the basement when I can. Instead I grab an apple and go through the kitchen door to the back porch, where Clementine the miniature donkey is braying at me impatiently.

"Hello my gorgeous little beast of burden," I say, feeding her the apple and scratching her behind her long, black tipped ears. "How are things in donkey-world?"

Clementine drools apple juice all over my knee and butts her head against my thigh. Extremely aware of how ridiculous I am, I kneel down and give her a hug, rubbing her neck and scratching her chest in the way I know she likes. The donkey was a gift from Rosalie for our wedding and I love her to a degree that's basically embarrassing.

"I could kill you for teaching that animal to get up the steps onto the porch." Rosalie wraps her arms around me from behind and leans against my back. "As soon as I get home she's banging on the back door and bellowing at me to come out and feed her treats, it's completely obnoxious."

"I didn't teach her, she taught herself because she's just so smart, aren't you Clementine?" I say admiringly. She lips at my fingers and licks the apple juice off my hand and then get to my feet, pulling Rosalie against me. "How are you? Good day?"

"Just the usual," Rosalie says. "What did you do today? Can I see?"

I fish my phone out of my pocket and open up the folder where I keep pictures of my work, showing Rosalie the completed chest piece from the afternoon.

"It looks good. I like the birds."

"Thanks." I brush her hair away from her face and take a deep breath. "I saw Edward and Alice too. She called wanting us to get coffee together and, well, there's not really any easy way to tell you this but…Alice is pregnant."

Oh, my beautiful girl. I had known that the news would hurt her, but I'm still not prepared for the depth of pain I see flash across her face. "I'm sorry, I know…"

"Don't." Rosalie pushes me away. "Just…don't even fucking talk to me. Give me a minute."

She walks to the end of the porch, and I see the whiteness of the skin over her knuckles as she grips the railings. All I want to do is grab her and hold her, but I know enough to give her the space she asked for and so I sit on the steps down to the backyard and stare down towards the river. Clementine rubs her velvety nose against my neck and then rests her head heavily on my shoulder, and I squint against the slanting rays of the setting sun.

"I'm sorry," Rosalie says quietly some time later, sitting beside me and leaning against the shoulder that doesn't have a donkey on it. "I could have handled that better. It was just…a shock."

"Tell me about it," I mutter.

Rosalie plays absentmindedly with a long piece of her hair. "What did she say?"

I snort. "That's she's 'kind of' pregnant. The 'kind of' pregnant that involves having had unprotected sex at some point and two positive pregnancy tests."

"Is she very far along? Did she say what she wants to do?"

"She's only a few weeks in, and right now I think she just wants it all to go away. She hasn't told Carlisle and Esme and she doesn't want to, but that's obviously got to happen. I told her I'd back her up if she wanted to talk to them tomorrow night, since you and I are going round for dinner." I grimace. "That'll be a fun conversation."

"It is Jasper's, isn't it? What does he say?" Rosalie says.

I shrug. "We didn't really talk about it. She said he knows, that he was there when she took the test and he'll support whatever she decides. I don't know how much support he can actually be though; he's a high school senior who doesn't even have a job, at least as far as I'm aware. Not that Alice has one either. I mean, Carlisle and Esme aren't going to let anyone go homeless and hungry, but it's not a great situation."

"Alice won't want to actually have it though, will she?" Rosalie says. "If she's pregnant now the baby would be due in the summer. How's she supposed to go off to college with a newborn? She's put in applications to study costume design in California and New York and even London, and she can't exactly do any of that with a baby in tow. She'd be mad to throw her whole future away at this point."

"You think she should have an abortion?"

Rosalie winds a length of her hair around her fingers. "I think she needs to make up her own mind," she says flatly. "But realistically…Alice is seventeen, and none of the current plans she has for her future are achievable if she keeps this baby. I'm not saying it's going to ruin her life. If she decides she wants it anyway I'm sure she'll be fine – she's smart and creative and will have a lot of family support as well, so she'll be able to figure out something, but it will look very different to what she's been dreaming of. She'll need to consider all of that."

I shake my head. "I just can't believe that she's been so dumb and irresponsible! I know what it's like to be seventeen…and damn, I had you in my bed…but it's not hard to be careful." I inhale the scent of Rosalie's hair and kiss her forehead. "We didn't take stupid chances."

Rosalie presses her lips together. "Not that it would have mattered if we had, since as it turns out I can't get pregnant anyway."

"We don't know that," I say softly. "It hasn't happened yet, but…"

"It's been a year." Rosalie cuts in. "That's twelve cycles of actively trying, with all that tracking and charting and testing. I know we never missed the timing…if it was going to happen it would have happened by now." Her voice is bleak.

"We can look into it. Make an appointment with the doctor and see what they say. Not yet doesn't mean never."

Rosalie's eyes are shiny with unshed tears. "I'm sorry. I want this so badly…but it's not working and I know it's all my fault. I don't know how to make this go right, and I'm so sorry that I can't do this for you."

"Aww baby, no." I wrap my arms around her and draw her closer, my heart aching. "Please don't. This is just one of those things, and we will deal with it. Together. Because yeah, I want a family with you, I want a baby with you…but none of that is more important than the two of us. I'll do whatever it takes to make this happen for us, but in the end it's you that matters to me. It's always been you…"

I can't talk over the lump in my throat but I kiss away the tears spilling down Rosalie's cheeks, and nothing else really matters when she kisses back. Nothing matters more than what we are together. Then the kisses turn harder and hotter, and Rosalie scratches my back deliciously as I take her down onto her back on the porch, my mouth on hers and hands touching wherever they can.

I love you. I want you. I need you.

"Emmett…"

"Huh?" I've got my belt unbuckled and jeans undone, and Rosalie's pants are halfway down her thighs, when I pull back and look at her. "What? Is this…? Do you want me to stop?"

"It's not that I don't want to, but there's a donkey looking at me over your shoulder and it's really off putting." Rosalie snorts with laughter. "I want your ass, but not when your other ass is standing there watching me!"

I look over my shoulder in bemusement to see Clementine standing there, flicking her long grey ears back and forth. As soon as she sees me looking at her she blows through her lips at me, and then I'm laughing too as I scoop Rosalie up and carry her inside.

"Yes okay, fair play…but there's no one in here but you and me." I make it as far as the living room before my unbuttoned jeans sliding down my legs trips me up and we fall onto the sofa. Then there really is nothing but the two of us, this beautiful girl and the glorious body she's shared with me for the past eleven years, and my overwhelming love and desire and passion for her.

"I love you," I tell her when we're both spent, lying in a sweaty tangle of limbs.

Rosalie kisses my neck and stretches languorously. "I love you too."

"I meant what I said before," I say quietly. "You and I together is what matters. We will do whatever it takes to have a baby, whatever you want…but this is enough." I run my hand along her side and over her hip. "As long as I have you, I have everything I need."

I drive straight to Carlisle and Esme's house after work the next afternoon and let myself in, calling out a hello as I walk into the kitchen.

"Emmett!" Esme pushes aside what she's doing and gives me a fierce hug as soon as I enter the kitchen. "It's so good to see you again!"

"You saw me last weekend," I point out laughingly, hugging her back. "I can't stay away."

I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and turn around just in time to catch three year old Abraham tackling my knees. "Hey little buddy!" I grab him under the armpits and toss him in the air, before holding him upside down by the ankles and swinging him side to side. "How's my main man doing?"

Abraham, who is non verbal, hoots and laughs as I swing him the right way up again and give him a heavy pressure hug. He grins and pushes up my sleeve until he can see the bear tattoo on my bicep, which he strokes with his chubby little fingers. "Bear's still there," I say.

Ruthie, his twin, jumps up and down next to us. "My turn, my turn!"

I let Abraham down and toss Ruthie up high enough to make her scream, then jiggle her around upside down until she's laughing. When I put her down, she staggers slightly and then runs after Abraham into the living room.

"They seem happy," I say. "Any more progress there?" Esme and Carlisle have been fostering the twins for nine months now, and I've become attached.

Esme is arranging sliced strawberries on top of a cake that I'm hoping is slated for dessert. "It's going really well. Their mom's settled into her new place and has been going to early intervention with Abraham and getting on top of his therapy needs. We're even starting to talk about tentative plans for the twins to go home, which is just wonderful news."

"Aww, that's great," I say, and Esme smiles at me gently and offers me some extra strawberries.

"It is great…but you don't have to pretend you won't miss them!"

I laugh guiltily. "Yeah yeah…but I know it'll be good for them to go home." I take the strawberries and then go to the fridge and pull out the milk. "Is Alice here?"

"She's in her room doing some homework." Esme steps past me with her finished cake. "If you want this cake to last until dessert, make sure you fasten the baby latch on the fridge when you put the milk back. Abraham will eat anything not nailed down."

"A man after my own heart," I say, waiting until Esme's back is turned and drinking from the carton. I do as she asks with the baby latch and then wander down the hall to Alice's room and knock. "Hey Monkey. What's up?"

Alice is sitting in the middle of her bed with a sketchbook, her laptop, and several books spread around her. "I'm doing some research for my final project; I want to design costumes for a production and make a couple of samples. I thought something historical might be fun and look really impressive, but the sewing for that is so complicated that I really need to get an early start on it." She nudges ones of the books towards me. "See, I was looking at one of Shakespeare's histories, Richard III, and that's fifteenth century fashion so it would be like this…"

Looking at her, excited and animated about a school project, it's almost impossible to believe that she's really pregnant. That right now, there's an actual baby growing inside her.

"It looks good." I take her sketchbook and flip through a few pages, admiring her drawings and all the notes in her loopy handwriting.

"It's similar to what I did for my college application project, but more involved," Alice tells me. "It will be a lot of work, but it should be really fun." She closes down her laptop. "Do you think Mom needs help with dinner?"

"She seemed to have it under control." I pause. "I guess you didn't talk to her and Carlisle last night then?"

Alice squirms. "No. You said you'd do it with me."

"You'll do it tonight then? I know you don't want to, but you can't put it off. You're going to have to make a decision, and the sooner you do the better. Edward said that abortion is easier the earlier you do it, and if you're going to keep it you need vitamins or something. You can't grow a baby on pop tarts and soda, you know."

Alice laughs a little hysterically. "As if Mom keeps pop tarts and soda in the house!" Her laughter ends in a quivery sob. "I wish this wasn't happening."

"Yeah, well wishing isn't getting you anywhere," I say with a sigh. "Do you want me to hang around and help you talk to them after dinner?"

"I guess so. Did you tell Rosalie?"

I nod. "Yeah."

"What did she say? That I'm the biggest idiot that ever lived? Oh, this is so embarrassing!" Alice covers her face. "She must think I'm so stupid! Of course perfect Rosalie would never get pregnant until she wanted to! Is she completely disgusted with me?"

"She just wants you to be okay, whatever you do now. That's what we both want," I say honestly. "We love you Monkey-face. Everyone does. And we'll all want to help you through this, so you need to tell Esme and Carlisle and let them in on it."

"I don't want them to be disappointed in me. I don't want them to think I'm like…like her…and that's the first place your mind went to, so you can't tell me that they won't think it!" Alice folds in on herself and buries her face in a pillow.

Momma. She's been gone eleven years, almost two thirds of Alice's life, but right now her ghost looms large. History is repeating itself…but it doesn't have to.

"They won't think that," I say quietly. "Carlisle and Esme raised you – you're theirs. You always said you don't remember…"

"I lied." Alice raises a tear stained face. "I remember a lot, and none of it makes me happy. I always swore I would never, ever be like that. And now I'm doing exactly the same thing."

I shake my head. "No you're not. Having a baby at seventeen wasn't where Momma went wrong. I mean, it didn't help, but it wasn't because of her age that she let people hurt us, or that she turned to drugs and let everything go. That was just her. You're different, and I know that you would never do that. If you decide to have this baby…and I'm saying if because you have a choice, you don't have to and no one is going to judge you harshly for choosing not to…but if you decide to be a mom I know for sure that you'll be a damn good one." And I put an arm around her and she leans against my chest and cries.