A/N: Not mine; no copyright infringement intended.

Much love to Felicity Deadwood and Kzinti_Killer for your invaluable input.

I've got a little momentum right now, so we'll see how long it lasts…

10.

~Emmett~

I stepped out onto the front porch as I heard a rather loud vehicle approaching the house. I could smell my sister getting closer. I hadn't seen her in about a week. Rosalie had been spending a lot of time showing me the Pacific Northwest territory and took me up to Alaska to introduce to me to the Denali clan.

Let me tell you, those girls are pretty hot. It was still strange to me though to see three gorgeous women and not feel inclined to hit on them. I was so satisfied and content with Rosalie that no other woman held an appeal for me. In any way at all. This mate thing was very intriguing.

Rosalie was also physically insatiable too and I was A-okay with that.

A dilapidated vintage red truck was following Edward's Volvo. After Edward pulled off into the garage, I could see my sister behind the wheel of the truck. What in the holy hell was she driving and why? She pulled up to the front of the house and the engine shut off with a shudder and a spurt. What did she intend to do with this tin can?

Bella waved enthusiastically from the cab of the truck. I smiled back. Alright, I admit it, I was happy to see the little brat.

She swung out of the truck and came running up to me on the porch. The closer she got, the stronger the inferno in my throat became. I was so stunned by the violence that ripped through me that I was quite literally frozen to my spot.

I threw my hand up with a warning growl to stop her when I realized she was going to hug me. I moved to the opposite end of the porch and began to pace. Every fiber of my being wanted to kill her. Well, almost every fiber of my being. She'd be dead already if all of me wanted to kill her.

It was plain from her face that she was stunned and a bit hurt by my reaction.

"Emmett-" She began and took a step toward me.

"Stay where you are," I ordered as I paced.

Edward made it to the porch first. He looked a little frantic. Well, wasn't this an interesting role reversal? Usually it was me watching him closely. "Keep her over there. I shouldn't have gone so long without seeing her." He stood in front of her, never taking his eyes off me.

"Jasper," Alice said appearing on the porch with my new brothers. "Why don't you take Emmett hunting for a bit? Don't go far; just enough to take the edge off."

I jumped over the porch railing and looked back up at Bella. "Don't go anywhere, okay? I won't be long."

She nodded, still speechless and I followed Jasper into the woods. We ran for a while. I wanted to put some distance between me and my sister so my head could clear. The last thing I wanted was to taste blood, even if it was animal blood, and smell my sister. I think that would be a very bad combination.

It might have been easier had I been able to take my guard shifts inside the house, but with Charlie in there, I couldn't chance it. Maybe we could get a hold of his work schedule and make it so I took the shift when he was working at night. Obviously, I needed to see her more than once a week.

And if I was being honest with myself, it was more than just so that the urge to kill her wouldn't be so strong. I did miss her. I missed talking to her. I missed making fun of her. And I missed the little snatches of humanity I got to keep with her. I would never admit it to her, but I do need my sister. She was my family. Even though I had this new larger family, she was my only link to my human life and my human memories. I could embrace my new life, but I also wasn't ready to let go of the memories of my mother yet either. It made me feel like I lost her all over again. Being around Bella kept those fresher than the rest of my human memories.

I saw an elk and went for the easy kill. I preferred bear, but I didn't want Bella to sit there and feel guilty for too long. She was probably pretty upset.

On the one hand, it was good for her to see me like that. It was good for her to be reminded that not all of us were friendly. Not all of us could control the urge to kill her. We weren't all safe for her. On the other hand, she had a right to feel safe around her brother and I didn't like that for one iota of a second, she may not have. What if nobody else was around? I didn't want to think about it. I obviously needed to take more precautions and so I would. It was as simple as that.

"You really are a freak, dude," Jasper said as I dropped my deer.

"Me?" I replied. "You're the mood changer."

I liked Jasper. He told me his back story and that guy was a bad ass if there ever was one. I was so impressed with the story of his change and how he lived for the first hundred years in his second life that I couldn't even muster the desire to make fun of him for going straight because he "felt bad about it." Newborn strength or not, I was pretty sure Jasper could probably still kick my ass.

"You're a freak of a nature," he continued. "Putting aside the fact that nature never intended to create vampires, I've never met a vampire that could so easily overcome the call of human blood."

"It's not easy."

"No, but it's clearly possible. It's giving me a new perspective on life."

"Very touching. You don't want a hug now or anything, do you?"

"You hug me, bro, and I will rip your arms off."

"You know, you almost make it sound like you'd feel better if I did kill her." We started back toward the house and I kept an eye out for anything else to eat on our way. Better to be safe than sorry.

"I sort of would."

I stopped and looked at him. "You asshole."

"No, I just meant I would understand that more is all," he replied. "I don't actually want you to kill her. I like her. Alice likes her. And Alice says she'll mean a lot to all of us, so that includes me. Besides, she reminds me of one of my sisters growing up. And I hadn't thought of Bethany since I was changed. I'm not entirely ready to let that go again."

Okay, well I had to give him that, since Bella helped me remember our mother, but I still thought he needed to be a little more diplomatic in how he worded stuff. We continued on back toward home.

"Did you ever go back and check on your family?"

"Maria wouldn't allow it, even if I wanted to. No, I figured out pretty quickly I would never be safe for them. They assumed I died in the war and for all intents and purposes, I did. I would have liked to have seen my sisters get married, especially Bethany. She was very sweet."

"You never checked newspaper records or anything? I mean, you really weren't curious?"

"No. That is part of my point, Emmett, none of us did. Well, Edward lost all his family to the Spanish Influenza and Alice doesn't remember anything at all about her human life, she doesn't even know who turned her, but Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, they never checked. Rosalie is the only one who came close by slaughtering the pigs that killed her, but she never checked for her family. You're different. You refused to be parted from your family and the fact that you can still keep your sister in your life is pretty amazing."

"Listen, she may be a typically annoying little sister, but that doesn't mean she needs to be alone in the world, does it? She doesn't deserve that."

He laughed. "I'm an empath; just admit you love her, Emmett, I can tell anyway."

"And yet still I'm the freak."

Empath or not, I wasn't going to talk about my feelings with another dude. That was just… against the code.

I found a deer on our way back and topped off…just in case. When we got back to the house, Bella was sitting on the front steps, hands clasped, looking anxiously toward the woods. I saw her long before she saw me. Edward was sitting next to her. I figured it would have been Esme or Alice keeping her company, but it was Edward. I had to admit, I was pretty impressed with how quickly he adjusted to having her around. I almost thought he was a lost cause, but that dude rallied. He was okay.

He played the piano too and he was really fucking good at it, not that I would tell him or anything, but he was. He smirked when he saw me. Yeah, for a second there I forgot he could read minds.

I approached the house slowly so Bella could see me. She smiled and stood up but I still kept my distance. I was going to subscribe to Edward's theory for now, get adjusted to her outside first before getting any closer.

"So," I said walking around the truck and kicking at the tire, the whole truck moved. Whoops. "What's the story with this?"

"It's my truck!" I could still see the disappointment in her face that I wasn't coming any closer, but she hid it well, or she tried to.

"Your truck?"

"Uncle Charlie got me money from our trust and we bought it off a friend of his. Isn't it great?"

"You bought this?" I asked. She nodded. "On purpose?"

"Emmett!"

"Bella it's…" I waved my hand at the rusty old heap. "I mean, you didn't want anything from, you know, this century?"

"Don't be hating on my truck," she said indignantly. "I think it's great. This thing is like a tank. It'll hold up against anything. It's very safe."

"If it continues to run, sure, maybe."

"It'll run. Jacob just rebuilt the engine."

"Jacob? Who the hell is Jacob?"

"Jacob Black," Bella said. "His father is Uncle Charlie's best friend."

"You bought this truck from Jacob Black?" Jasper asked. "You didn't say that."

"You don't actually know him?" Bella asked. The Cullens had told me the story about the wolves on the reservation. I knew that the tribe chief's last name was Black. So I knew Bella associating with his son or grandson was not welcomed news.

"We know his grandfather, sort of, from the last time we lived here," Edward explained quietly.

"Oh, well, Jacob is a pretty good mechanic and he fixed everything up. It runs great." Bella continued. She didn't notice the tension in Jasper and Edward, but I did. "I think it's got character."

"I think it's a piece of shit," I said bluntly.

"Well, you're not the one driving it, are you?"

"I think that's a big 10-4."

I glanced over at the garage where inside there was parked a Mercedes, a Volvo, a BMW and, much to my extreme jealousy, an Aston Martin that Edward kept under lock and key. The only one that was allowed to touch it other than Edward was Rosalie and that was only when she worked on it. Everything in there was fast, flashy and less than five years old. Rosalie and I started poking around for something for me. I didn't need anything slick and racy, but I did want something that kicked ass.

Rosalie must have heard our conversation from the garage because she came over and joined us.

"What is this doing here?" Rosalie looked at the truck in disgust.

"It's mine," Bella said between her teeth.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Drive it."

Rosalie's eyes widened as she looked back at the hunk of junk in front of us. This vehicle appealed neither to her sense of vanity or automotive interest.

"Oh, well…" she trailed off, clearly not finding anything nice to say about it.

"It's in excellent shape," Bella said, lifting her chin. "The engine was just rebuilt."

Rosalie arched an eyebrow at my sister. Instead of responding, she merely went over to the driver's side, opened the door and started the truck up. The engine literally came to life with a roar. Rose threw an indulgent look over at Bella as she moved to pop the hood.

"Wait," I said, waving my hands and moving to her side. "You're not going to convince her to get rid of this hunk of crap?"

"Well, I wouldn't be caught dead in it," she replied. Ha ha. "But if she's going to drive it, I'll check it over. It certainly doesn't need to be this loud. The little wonder mechanic obviously didn't know how to fix that."

"That would be good," Bella said moving to Rosalie's other side. "I was going to ask if you could make it quieter. I mean, everyone in the parking lot looked at me when I pulled in."

"It wasn't entirely because of your truck, Bella," Edward smiled.

He moved to her other side and the four of us peered under the hood. Jasper peeled away from us, I assumed to go find Alice. I squinted my eyes at Edward over the rattle of the engine. "You don't have anything else you could be doing right now?" He shrugged in response and stayed put. "I knew you'd hit it off with her. You're just as nerdy as she is. You're a perfect match. And by match I mean you'd make an excellent friend." Edward chuckled and looked back at the engine.

"What's so funny?" Bella asked looking at Edward.

"Nothing," he said, but didn't lose his smile.

"So, Rosalie, what do you think?" Bella asked turning back to where Rose was bent over the engine fiddling around.

"Well," she said. "It's not a complete lost cause – under here anyway – but it still needs some work. I'm going to have to do some digging on where I can get parts for it. I doubt they even make parts for it anymore, which is probably why the engine was just rebuilt. It'll be an… interesting project."

"Thank you, Rosalie," Bella smiled. "I really appreciate it. I can pay for the parts."

Rosalie laughed, then got behind the wheel. "Just leave it with me for now." I gaped at Rosalie as she put the truck into gear and drove it over to the garage.

What a fucking traitor! I figured she'd at least be on my side.

I looked over at Bella and dropped my hands to my hips. "You really like that thing?"

"It just needs love," she smiled softly. That pretty much ended that argument. Once Bella's heart was set on something, there was no budging her.

"It's a good thing you've got a LOT of love in you," I shook my head and finally gave her the hug she had been waiting for. She squeezed me tight - or tight for her - put her head on my shoulder and sighed. I dropped my face to the crook of her neck and breathed in deep, letting the burn roll down my throat. Strange, I actually missed that feeling.

"I'll just go inside," Edward said. "I can drive you home later, Bella."

"Oh, she's not going to be finished today?" Bella asked pulling back and looking at me.

"She doesn't seem to think so," Edward chuckled and then turned toward the house and disappeared inside.

"How am I going to get to school tomorrow?"

"They'll probably pick you up," I shrugged. We walked back to the front steps and sat down. "That was the plan anyway. We figured after a week or so it wouldn't be weird for you to start getting rides from friends and they were just going to pick you up and drop you off. Then you brought that…thing."

"I like it. It suits me."

"It'll probably have the most bitchin' stereo of any car in the school lot, other than Edward's."

"That's not that important to me," she laughed.

"It will be if you think I'm ever riding with you in that thing."

"Alright, enough about my truck. How have you been? Have you settled in alright?"

"Isn't that supposed to be my question?"

"I'll answer it next."

"Yeah, I guess," I shrugged. "It's a nice area. I can see why Charlie likes it and mom hated it. Rosalie has been taking me all over so I can get familiar with it. There's another coven they know up in Alaska, so she took me up there to meet them."

"You went to Alaska?"

"Yeah."

"You went to Alaska and back in a week?"

"I don't sleep, Bells, we can drive through the night."

"Oh, yeah." She still sounded a little unsure about that.

"Anyway, this house is pretty awesome. Mine and Rose's room -"

"You're staying in the same room?"

"What are you, my mother? Yes."

"Like, sharing a bed?"

"Well, not that we use it for sleeping, but yeah."

Her eyes widened, her face reddened and her mouth dropped open. Watching her gape like a fish was totally worth the massive flare up that just shot through me when she flushed.

Bella's face was an open book. I watched all the thoughts running through her head cross her face. In the end, she decided not to voice any of them. I was actually kind of disappointed by that.

"Anyway, the bedrooms have huge sliding doors in them so we can just go in and out that way. Rose and I keep ours open because it really opens it up and makes you feel like you're part of the forest. It's cool."

She nodded. "That sounds great."

I think she was still stuck on the sharing a room thing. We had the conversation about me and Rosalie before though. She still thought I'd have my own room? I tried to remember that my lifestyle had switched gears very quickly and that it would take her a while to catch up, but was she really that much of a prude? That was…well, comforting actually, but in reality, I was going to have to face the fact that someday someone was going to catch her eye. Deny it though I did, I really didn't expect her to become a nun. I did figure one day she'd get married.

Which brought about a whole different set of problems. Exposing ourselves to my sister was one thing, but what if she got married? If she got serious about some guy, realistically speaking, what was I going to do? Letting some dude in on the big secret was not possible. If I wasn't telling Charlie, I wasn't telling anyone else. She was a special circumstance. On the other hand, I was such a big part of her life, what could she do about it? Could I really ask her to look the guy she loved in the face and lie?

I was so busy thinking about her safety that not for one second did I think about how associating with a bunch of vampires would affect the rest of her life. She had to lie to her friends, when she made them, our uncle and in the future, the guy she fell in love with, maybe even her kids. Could I really ask her to do that?

Yes, I could. I could ask her and what's worse is I probably would ask her. But the real crime here was that Bella is very smart. If she hadn't realized all those obstacles already, she would, and she would make marriage and relationships out of the question for herself. She'd do that without a word about it from me because the sun rose and set on me and always had. She'd give up love before she gave up her brother.

Now most of me thought that was just fine. I would be perfectly happy with my sister going through life as a virgin. I really could be okay with being the most important guy in her life. But the part of me that loved her, that refused to go through life without her, could never accept those terms. The whole point of getting her away from Lou and out here to Charlie was so that she had a shot at a normal life.

Thank God all that love stuff wasn't something I had to deal with now.

Piano music began drifting out of the open window. Edward had been playing this particular tune a lot. Esme said it was new, that he just wrote it. It sounded awfully complex for being such a new song, but Esme said Edward was very talented. She said this sounded like a lullaby. I guess it did.

"That piano sounds real," Bella said looking back toward the house.

"It is. It's your nerdy new BFF," I grumbled.

"What?"

"Edward," I said. "He's playing it."

"That's him?" she gaped.

"No, it's freaking Liberace." Wait a minute, did I sound jealous? No. No, that wasn't jealousy. But the closer she got to the open window, the more annoyed I became. Clearly, I was not ready to come to terms with the fact that there might be a guy she thought was cooler than me.

Well, no. No, there would never be a guy she thought was cooler than me, especially nerdy Edward – who actually wasn't that bad.

I looked up at her as she stood there and looked through the living room window into the house and I'm sure right at Edward at the piano in the living room. She stayed there and listened like she was in some sort of trance.

Fuck.

I let out the breath I had been holding since Jasper and I got back and stood up.

"C'mon, Bells," I said resigned. "Why don't I show you the house?"