A/N: The conversation at the beginning will not seem particularly coherent to anybody but me, it makes sense to me, I don't really think it was supposed to make sense to you. Whatever, enjoy!
"Are you scared?" Emmett asked, as we pulled out of the Cullen's garage, still using Alice's Porsche, despite the fact that his Jeep was freely available.
"Of being turned into a vampire, no. Of you driving this thing in the dark, hell yes."
Emmett emitted a low throaty laugh, "You probably wouldn't be surprised by the way Bella and Edward were in the beginning, he actually composed her songs and watched her sleep. I actually thought that it was mildly vomit inducing. Not that I can vomit" he added. Yes, that didn't surprise me. The pair of them definitely had that 'joined at the hip' 19th Century lovers thing going on.
"You're Renesmee's uncle" I said, unquestioningly.
Emmett nodded, and replied, "I don't know why I love you, I just do."
Figures, I mean, apart from the inhuman beauty, I wasn't entirely sure why I loved Emmett so much either, having known him for the grand total of about two days. And then I realised that the entire fact that he was answering questions that I wasn't asking, without Edward's irritating habit of mind-reading, was very much part of our compatibility.
"I know it'll probably take a while to sink in, but you will get your head around it, I promise." Emmett reached out, brushing his hand against my fingers.
"It means we'll be together. I'll cope." I had already worked out that with this whole 'newborn' thing I wouldn't be able to stay at home, that I'd probably want to bleed my mom and Nick dry, and that I'd never be the same again. "Will I be beautiful, like you?" I asked doubtfully. At that point I was fairly grateful for the seatbelt, as Emmett slammed the brakes on the car.
"You are beautiful" he growled, his eyes scorching through to what I thought must be my soul, "The most beautiful."
I rolled my eyes, as images of Renesmee, Bella, Esme and Alice flickered in my mind. "Now who sounds like Edward?" I teased, even though I knew he couldn't be telling the truth.
"Edward never would have done this" Emmett said, leaning over and searching out the pulse in my neck with his lips.
"Watch the road!" I giggled, as his lips crawled down my throat.
"The road's fine" he replied, his voice vibrating against my skin and adjusting the wheel slightly to avoid a sheep that had strayed into our path.
"You have to teach me how to do that, when-" I didn't want to say the word 'vampire' again; I'd heard it far too many times in the space of a few hours.
"Don't think about it" he suggested, turning his attention back to driving. Half of me felt safer, half of me didn't. I compromised by taking the hand that wasn't on the steering wheel, and intertwining my fingers with his.
"Why are vampires so cold?" I asked, as his icy hand began to numb my skin. "Oh" I realised, as Emmett went to open his mouth, "No heartbeat means no blood pumping, right? And blood is warm. Makes sense really."
Emmett nodded his head, and moved to take his hand away from mine. "Don't you dare Emmett Cullen" I warned, and he cringed.
"You know what Carlisle said about resonance? Well, that's actually quite painful."
I hadn't realised that my voice had changed, I hadn't meant it to, and I hadn't even meant for that to be an order.
"Don't apologise" he added, as I began to open my mouth, "It's not your fault you're amazing." It was however my fault that my voice hurt him, and I determined never to say anything that could be construed as an order ever again, if I could help it.
"I can't tell anyone, right? Not my mom, not Nick?"
Emmett shook my head and said, "Talk to Bella tomorrow. She knows all about the trials and tribulations of leaving humanity behind." I got the feeling that Bella had gotten much more time to adapt to this than I had.
"Why?" I questioned, "Why are you all vampires?"
Emmett didn't reply.
"Emmett?"
I knew that there was no way that he was concentrating so hard on driving, for goodness sakes, he'd managed to dodge a sheep while kissing me not ten minutes ago.
"Let's not talk about it anymore" Emmett said, "They'll be more than enough time to discuss this...later." I knew that I'd never find conversation with Emmett awkward, not even if we both existed until the end of time, but he was right, I was all vampire-d out.
"Are you going to watch me sleep then?" I added, recalling his earlier comments about Edward's soppy behaviour.
"Would you like me to watch you sleep?" he replied, as he slowed to a more respectable speed on the approach to my house.
"I'm sure you've got much better things to do with your time. You don't sleep, do you?" So, that was another thing I could say goodbye to. In truth, this new life didn't seem to have too many perks, excepting Emmett himself.
"After the whole newborn thing, it does get better, honestly."
I remembered Edward's comment, and blushed some more.
"I love it when you blush" Emmett commented, the car now stationary in front of my drive. I saw the living room curtains twitch; my mother had always taken a sordid interest in my love life.
"Yeah, well, don't get used to it, no heartbeat equals no blushing" I reminded him, rather grudgingly.
"It's all going to be fine. Although Aro..."
Those three names, Aro, Caius and Marcus, they made me angry somehow. Despite the fact that I'd just met a whole bunch of lovely, vegetarian vampires (Alice had reassured me as I'd been leaving that the Cullens' blood intake was strictly non-human) I just knew that those three names meant trouble.
"No more vampire talk" I reminded Emmett, placing a finger on his lips.
"I forgot" he replied, nipping my finger lightly, careful not to break the skin. "Let's get you to bed Miss Taylor."
Emmett's arms were a very comfortable place to be, but his strength no longer awed me since I'd seen Edward pick up the baby grand in the Cullens' living room, and reposition it.
"Hello again, Mrs. Davies" Emmett said, my mom having opened the door before either of us had a chance to ring the bell. "I promise I won't come back again until tomorrow" he added, on seeing Nick's slightly disapproving expression. "I will see you tomorrow Kate" he told me, leaving me on the sofa, the only place other than the inside of Alice's Porsche and the Cullens' living room that I'd really had the ability to get to in the past three days, and even then, only thanks to Emmett.
"What time are you going to come and get me?" I asked, and Nick's eyes narrowed significantly.
As Emmett answered, "Ten o' clock, weather permitting," Nick cut across, "I'll drop Kate off at your house, she can direct me."
My mother laughed, and I knew that it would be at my expense, "Nick, sweetheart, really? Kate isn't the best at geography, and Emmett has just offered."
My step-dad relinquished the over-protective male role, but he didn't look happy about it. "I suppose. But don't you have another car? I don't feel safe letting Kate race around Yorkshire in a Porsche."
Another eye-rolling moment for me. "Bring the Jeep. That is, if you think that you'd be able to lift me into it? My foot does still hurt quite a bit." I swore internally, before adding, "Please, Emmett?"
He smiled indulgently at me, ran a freezing finger along my jaw line, waved at my mom and Nick, and sauntered back out to the car. My skin tingled where he'd touched me, and I glanced out of the window to see him drive off.
"Your voice" Nick commented, sounding strangled.
"What about it?" This voice betrayed my fear. Carlisle had promised me that humans wouldn't be able to hear the difference in my tone, on account of my 'gift', that their ears were nowhere near sensitive enough.
"It's, well, it's different when you speak to him." Nick didn't define whether it was a good different or a bad different.
"Oh, leave her alone, Nick" my mom scolded, "It's young love, it'll consume her entirely for three weeks, and then she'll fall back in love with Alex Phillips." What she didn't know was that in three weeks I might not necessarily be a human being anymore. I still hadn't worked out how the Italian Vampiric Police Force, the Volturi, were going to find out that I knew about their supernatural existence, but apparently it had Alice worried. And when one member of the Cullen family worried, they all worried.
"Whatever happened to Alex Phillips?" Nick questioned, as I once more attempted to manipulate my brain into understanding the situation, "He was here yesterday, wasn't he?" Here, he went off on a tangent, detailing all the ways in which Alex Phillips was much better suited to me: I'd known him pretty much since I was born, his parents were really nice people that my mom and Nick knew and trusted, Alex's Clio was much safer than a Porsche. The list went on, I think. I didn't tell Nick, but I had the number one top reason to love Emmett instead; he was my soul mate. I didn't tell him that, for fear of sounding absolutely mental. It was a little bit mental actually, but since my entire world had been turned inside out, upside down, back to front and done a back flip in the matter of a couple of hours, I figured it sounded less loopy to me than it would to Nick.
"Steak with salsa verde, homemade chips and green salad" my mom announced, bringing a tray in from the kitchen, "Steak well done, of course." Seeing as how fairly soon I'd be drinking blood for my dietary requirements, I considered trying my steak rare for the time being.
"It's lovely" I reassured my mom, as she hovered over me, "Really."
"So, you didn't eat at Dr. Cullen's house then?" she probed, clearly trying to be more subtle than she had earlier, "What did Alice want you for after all?"
I quickly shovelled another mouthful of my dinner into my mouth, and chewed extensively, giving me a few seconds to invent an appropriate lie. "Oh" I said finally, "It wasn't actually really anything much, she just wanted my opinion on the positioning of her bed in her room. Dr. Cullen told her that I'm into Feng Shui." It was honestly the best that I could come up with.
"You're into Feng Shui?" my mother asked, a look of complete astonishment on her face. "Since when?"
I mumbled something about having picked up a book about it sometime, and then pretended to be really interested in my salad.
"So, was that all?" she continued, after I thought the subject was closed. "You were out for about 2 hours, it could only have taken you twenty minutes to Feng Shui Alice's room." Her interest in my love life was beginning to grate a little, and, unfortunately, there was no Jasper around to tame me into submission. However, the realisation that the days that my mom, Nick and I had together were rapidly drawing to a close, forced me to keep cool.
"We just hung out. Watched TV. Did girly stuff."
"And Emmett?" I knew it could only be a matter of time before his name was brought up, my mom just couldn't cope with not knowing every little detail.
"Emmett was helping Edward move some things for Esme." This lie was much more dependable than 'Feng Shui', and like all the best lies, it was partially true; Emmett had spent the best part of the day hauling me in and out of cars. There was more gentle probing until I finished my dinner; what was the Cullens' house like, were Dr. and Mrs. Cullen really as nice as they seemed, what was the atmosphere like with all those adopted kids running around? None of them questions which I could really answer, because my visit had focused more on the transition from human to vampire, and I'd understood very little of it.
I faked a yawn very soon after my plate was clear, because although I did want to spend as much time as I could with my mom and step-dad, I really did need a little 'me' time, to get my head around things in privacy, and devise a list of questions to ask the Cullens. I knew how one became a vampire, Carlisle had described the basic process for me, the injection of vampiric venom into the bloodstream, but I also knew that I was a special case for him; I wasn't hanging onto my life by a thread. He'd described it as a last ditch resort, but I didn't know what made someone need a last ditch resort, and since Emmett hadn't precisely been forthcoming about what had landed he, his brothers and his sisters into this position, I resolved to find out. And, I was so intrigued by Nessie (the family nickname has stuck in my brain, much to Bella's chagrin) that I wanted to have a good chat with her, and possibly see some more of her memories.
I remember thinking that I should treasure sleep, because I wouldn't be able to do it much longer, but, as is always the case, my thoughts became more and more abstract as sleep drew closer and closer, and my last thoughts were barely coherent, let alone appreciating the wonders of R.E.M.