ROSES BEHIND MIRRORS

She didn't want to be there. He couldn't wait to get away. But what happened when Rosalie Hale came thundering into Emmett Cullen's life, no one could have predicted. AU, AH. RxEm.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Stephenie Meyer beat me to it.

Chapter Nine

The week passed relatively easily for all of them, and that was a surprise. Rosalie and Jasper had gone home late from the Cullens' that night, and hardly said a word to each other, just retiring to their separate rooms, slight smiles on both their faces. The next morning, and the next, and the next, when Rosalie woke up, for a moment the creeping dread, the horror, the fear, filled her again, as they had every time she drifted out of sleep for the last six months. She got up slowly, dragging as she always did, heavy-hearted and with stinging eyes, and then she looked at the clothes strewn over the back of her chair, her jeans and blue shirt, and a coat Emmett had forced her to borrow from Esme to drive home in, insisting it was "too cold".

Emmett. The thought pushed the dread and the horror and the fear a little further down, so they were no longer drying her mouth, but barely burning the back of her throat. They had in no means disappeared, she wondered if that would ever be possible, but something….something seemed to be fighting them down. She even let a little smile touch her lips as she darted into the bathroom, knocking on Jasper's door as she did to wake him up.

She had Emmett in her English Literature and American History classes, and Jasper in French and Math. The others were a lot harder, walking into rooms full of unknown people, all eyes turning to watch her, to judge her beauty before they even knew her. She quickly found out the best way to deal with most of the guys, although mainly the jocks that sat, swinging on the back two legs of chairs at the back of the classroom, was to avoid their gaze completely. That way, she could never see the leers, the lust that jumped into their eyes, and she would never have to remember…

The first time she went back into English Lit, on Thursday, she was hovering by some lockers outside the classroom, trying to brace herself to walk into the class that had witnessed the beginnings of her breakdown. A teacher that wouldn't understand her rudeness. That guy…

"You thinking of going in anytime soon, Rosalie, or do you have an aversion to literature in general?"

Emmett. How was it that just at the point where she crumbling to nothing someone had come into her life that could make her smile, even when she was teetering on the edge?

"Just psyching myself up." She smiled. "It's… I'll be all right… you go on in…"

He shook his head. "I'll wait." He said simply, standing there with her, looking down at his hands, almost awkward, but decisive all at the same time. She felt a little warmer inside. That was it, again, not caring about what she actually asked him to do, but doing what he thought was best for her. He was… incomprehensible, and unlike anyone else.

"I'm ready." She whispered.

He grinned at her, dimples making her heart thud. She walked through the door slowly; Emmett so close behind her she could feel his body heat, towering over her, eyes scanning the room for anyone who might cause her even the slightest ounce of pain.

No one really noticed as she walked through the door. A few people glanced her up and down, the jock from the back row gave her a glare – she considered she had probably bruised his oversized ego inadvertently – and now, with Emmett right there and slightly more sense running through her head, she could rationalise the situation. She wasn't in any danger in a high school classroom. No one was going to hurt her there. There was an empty two person desk at the back, the other side from where she had sat before, triggering everything. "That one." Emmett muttered in her ear, gesturing to it, and she felt his breath graze her neck. She couldn't remember the last time her senses had been this heightened, she'd become so used to everything being so numb. But when he was around… she felt everything, even his eyes on her.

She walked through the rows of students, watched a few whisper something to their companions, and others stare boredly ahead. She wasn't the new news anymore. She didn't matter anymore to them than the girl sat by the window with her head in a book. Emmett noticed that people hardly seemed to stare after her as they had before, too. He considered for a moment and realised that possibly, in a school this size, most people had realised the Hale twins were sitting at lunch with the Cullens, and they weren't considered exactly friendly. People were judging the Hales already on the fact they were sitting with the famously 'snooty, too-rich-for-their-own-good' Cullens. He wished for a second that he could care that he was stunting Rosalie and Jasper's popularity growth in that way, but he couldn't.

She slid into the seat in the back corner, and Emmett slid beside her. The desks were small, probably better designed for the freshmen that the seniors, and for someone with a torso and arms the size of Emmett's, they hardly gave the other person any private space. But somehow, sitting at the back of the room, however she arranged herself with her arm brushing his; that was comforting. He'd already told their teacher on the first day, when he'd gone to collect her bag, that she was recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning and had had to run out the classroom to be sick, so Mrs Bartlett, the nervous-looking Shakespeare-worshipping little woman with the thick glasses hardly noticed anything had been amiss. Rosalie found her heart rate slowing at the thought of those prying eyes, those leering faces, and settled into her space beside this guy she suddenly felt as if she'd known a long, long time.


On Thursday lunchtime, Edward brought Bella Swan over to their canteen table. She was pretty enough, but normal pretty, not Rosalie's beautiful or Alice's striking. She looked nervously between them all before sliding into a seat between Edward and Alice, who had instantly befriended the girl, as she was wont to do with anyone who struck her fancy, in one of their classes. Alice and Jasper, it seemed, had become close, as if they had skipped the "new acquaintances" stage entirely. They only had Senior Spanish together, but a few free periods they spent sitting on the wall of the parking lot together, heads close, talking – about what, neither Emmett or Rosalie had any idea, but that didn't seem to matter at this point – and although they mingled with the rest of the group at lunchtime, sometimes their eyes would lock together and they would make everyone else at the table feel slightly awkward with their totally unashamed... well, gazing.

Bella tucked nervously into her Caesar salad, but Emmett's friendly joking nature, along with the way Edward seemed to hover close to her, as if she was breakable, and Alice's delighting chatter; they seemed to soften her walls and by the end of lunch hour she was smiling and laughing with them. Rosalie hadn't really had any chance to talk properly to the girl, but she seemed nice enough, the word Alice had used, "sweet", was apt. And when she was around, the usually slightly morose and sombre Edward cheered up considerably.

So Rosalie and Emmett were often forced into each other's company, not that either of them minded. Rosalie found herself growing increasingly excited and increasingly nervous about their trip at the weekend, and Emmett, in some way, could almost sense it. Every now and again he would catch her on her own, or speak in an undertone.

"Are you sure you're ok for this weekend? It's ok if you're not, I mean, we can always wait, do it another time…"

By about the sixth time of him asking that, or something to that effect, on Friday, just before they were all about to get into their respective cars and drive home – Edward dropping Bella off in his Volvo, because her old, temperamental truck was being fixed – she stopped him, grabbing his arm, looking straight into his eyes.

"Emmett."

"Uh huh?"

She took a deep breath. Baby steps, Rose. She felt suddenly like everything, the past five days of high school in Forks, five days of the Cullens, five days of him, were racing ahead of her, and it required her full concentration to keep up…

"I want to go out with you tomorrow, ok? I'm fine with it – if I wasn't, I would say, all right?"

He smiled at her. "Sorry. I just…" Don't want to lose you before I've even found you… "…never mind."

She narrowed her eyes slightly but decided it wasn't time to question him. Without even noticing her hand was still on his arm, she continued to smile at him. For a girl who had started on Monday feeling every inch of physical contact like a burn, and now being… if it was possible… happier when she was touching him, she had come a long way.

"What time shall I be ready for you to pick me up?"

He shrugged. "If you wanted, you could drive round in the morning, we could have breakfast at mine, and then go walking… and then you'd have your car there to drive home in… in the evening, or whenever. In the afternoon, if you wanna leave by then."

He was nervous, occurred to her suddenly, her eyes twinkling a little, beautifully, but then, as always, with Rosalie, that was a given.

"Ok." She smiled, "I'm an early bird, though."

Dimples, showing. "I'll have breakfast served at… half nine?"

She nodded, "Half nine it is."

He smiled at her, almost stupidly, for a moment, and then felt a blush creeping up his neck, neither of them knowing what to say next, stupid grins on their faces.

"I…uh… I've gotta, well, go, now…" she mumbled, lifting her hand slowly away from his arm, loathe to break contact.

"Me too." He said quickly. "See you tomorrow morning."

"See you." She said quietly, and on a complete whim, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly, no more than a tiny peck really, on the cheek. She wasn't quite tall enough, however, and it hit just above his jaw. He smiled.

"Bye, Rosalie."

"Bye, Emmett."

As she walked to her car, and an incredulous Jasper, wondering who she was and what she had done with Rosalie Hale, she realised something. She'd been bracing herself, in the second before she kissed him, to smell like him, to smell like sweat and grease and wrong. But he had smelt quite different.

Like the aftershave Alice had bought him last Christmas, mint, and right.

A/N: I couldn't even hold off from updating for one day, guys, but I guess that's good for you lot! Thanks again to all my lovely reviewers, you seem as in love with this story as I am, which warms the cockles of my heart :P Hope, as usual, it's not fast, to fluffy, or to angsty or whatever is your particular pet hate!! Next chapter, which I will write tomorrow, regardless of the fact I have an exam on Friday, is The Date!!!!!!

Yippee!

Review.

x