Notes: And just where did Rosalie's idea come from anyway? With input from Emmett.


If Rosalie's appearance -- and proposition -- might have shocked Bella quite thoroughly, it was clear it wasn't a new idea to Rosalie. She'd already drawn up plans and basic legal documents to start a private, non-profit agency. It would require details to be filled in for any specific state, but the bare bones were there. "How long have you been contemplating this?" Bella asks, curious.

"A long time -- off and on. But more seriously only recently."

Bella is baffled. "Because of me? Did you know I was a women's studies grad student too?"

Rose grins, watching Bella pack up her things for the day. "Yes, I knew via Alice. But I majored in women's studies too, once."

Bella's eyebrows lift. "You did?" It isn't the sort of thing she'd ever expected from Rosalie.

"Don't look so shocked. I finished back in 1983 when women's studies was all new and shiny and in vogue. But that was over thirty years ago, and just an undergraduate degree anyway. I still need your expertise." She shrugs; it's deliberately artless. "I did it then because Emmett had lost a bet and had to take an intro class. I took it with him, then just . . . stayed in the program."

There are a freight of unsaid things that lie behind that last sentence, and once again, Bella is struck by how little she really knows about the Cullens. Rose had majored in women's studies before Bella had been born. "Did you march for ERA?" she asks now, curious.

"Of course. Along with Esme and Alice."

They've reached the little lobby where the receptionist's desk sits in the small suite of offices that serve Women's Studies, Latino Studies and Native American Studies. Emmett is sitting there leafing through a magazine. He seems large enough to fill up the whole space, and seeing Bella, grins widely and hops up, crossing in two steps to her chair to lift her bodily and hug her tight. Her useless legs dangle. "Bella!"

"Emmett!" Rose rebukes, sounding properly PC-shocked, but Bella just laughs and hugs him back, not as upset as she probably should be for feeling like a doll in his grip. She'd always felt like a doll around Emmett, so this is no different.

"I missed you," she says as Emmett lowers her back into her chair with surprising care.

"Missed you, too, Bella-boo."

Bella rolls her eyes at the silly nickname and is glad it's almost five and their work-study student is gone for the day already. But it is dead-week and students are cutting corners for what spare time they can find to bone up for finals or finish term papers. Bella has her own paper to put finishing touches on, but decides it can wait and lets Rose and Emmett take her out to dinner even if she's the only one who'll actually be eating. It's a nice little Italian restaurant, which is about as exotic as Dawesonville gets (it's not Atlanta). Emmett's dimples and the return of his sweet Tennessee drawl wrangles them a booth in the back so he and Rosalie can clear their pasta plates into convenient baggies they've brought for that purpose. "You can store it and eat it later," Rose says pragmatically. "No sense in wasting it."

That's when Rose lays out her plans and proposals while Emmett looks on with a mixture of pride and proprietary interest. After a while, Bella interrupts to say, "But Alice told me that you and Emmett live in Nashville now. Have you passed the bar in Georgia too, or were you expecting me to move to Tennessee?" She supposes she could move -- she needs the job -- but Rose has been talking as if she'd planned to open the shelter here.

"Nashville already has a shelter; I do pro bono work for them." She glances at Emmett; it seems like she's asking for permission. He nods once. "These days, most urban areas have shelters," Rose continues, "but rural areas don't necessarily. It's hard to find funding, and harder to get cooperation and volunteers. Rural communities are -- "

" -- defensive," Emmett finishes when she pauses, but doesn't elaborate.

"There's just not the concentrated population, or the feminist or organizational networks in place to support them," Rose says. "But domestic violence occurs in rural areas too, and those women lack recourse that urban women have."

Bella only nods. She knows all this, but Rose is on a soapbox and Bella doesn't interrupt. She's never seen Rosalie passionate like this. It's interesting. "Their families may even blame them, or at least tell them to suck it up and stick it out because people will talk, or because the Bible tells them to obey their husbands, or because they don't know what else to do about it. I'd originally thought about starting this in Tennessee, but . . . well -- "

"-- the family's here," Emmett finishes. He looks unusually somber and plays with his water glass. "It don't matter to me, Rose. Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, Alabama . . . it don't matter to me as long as people get help."

Bella looks from Rose to Emmett, and mostly finished with her pasta, pushes the plate aside. She's seated in the booth, having been lifted into it earlier by Emmett. Her chair is backed up against the wall out of the way. "I gather this is a joint project?" she asks.

Emmett's smile is gentle and his gold eyes grow a bit distant. "I had a great family growing up," he says. "We never had much money even before the Depression, but we had each other. That was good enough. It never occurred to me . . . well, I didn't know all families weren't like mine."

He shifts in his booth seat; the vinyl squeaks under his weight. "There was this other family my parents used to play cards with, the Pritchards." As he speaks, his accent comes back full force along with old speech patterns. "All us kids'd go up to the loft and play games there, or us boys'd go out and shoot BB guns at tin cans. Me and my brothers used to look forward to card-game night just to get out of the house. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. Mama and Pa never explained why when we'd complain, just said we wouldn't be goin' back there no more. We could see the kids at school, but that was it.

"About two years later, Old Man Pritchard was found dead at the bottom of the family well. The county sheriff poked around a bit, but nobody ever got arrested. A few years after, Billy, the eldest, blew his head off out in their chicken coop."

Bella winces. Emmett is frowning, his usually genial face looking thunderous.

"Mizz Pritchard and her kids had to leave town -- go live with her sister in Cosby because Billy was the only one supporting 'em after his pa died. It was the Depression by then, though really to us, there weren't no difference. You don't get much lower'n dirt poor." His grin is sardonic. "I don't know what happened to them, but my older brother finally told me the rest of the story. Billy had pushed his pa into that well and dropped rocks on him to kill him. Old Man Pritchard was a drunk -- used to hit his wife and kids, then one day, Billy caught him fondling his little sister and that was it. He killed him, but couldn't live with it after, started drinking too, and finally just shot himself."

Emmett looks up at Bella. "I guess you could say I got my eyes opened that day. Other families weren't like ours. Later, I found out Rose's story" -- he nods at Rose -- "and Esme's too. It really . . . "

He pauses to shake his head and Rose reaches over, covering his hand with hers. "It makes me furious. It makes me furious when a man uses his strength to hurt the people he oughta protect. I know, I know -- women's lib is all about women protecting themselves, taking care of themselves -- and that's fine. I get it. My ego don't require chest thumping. I'm not Tarzan, but I've always been strong even when I was little. Mama told me God gave me strength for a reason so I could protect my family. And back then, that's what a good husband, a good man did. So it pisses me off when a man abuses that role, even if it makes me sound old-fashioned. It's wrong. It's just wrong. No kid should have to make the choice Billy did. And maybe . . . maybe if there'd been some other option for 'em, he wouldn't've had to. That was in the 1920s, sure, and all anybody in Gatlinburg could do for the Pritchards was turn a blind eye to what'd really happened -- that his own son had killed him -- because all the adults knew Old Man Pritchard was a bastard. But the rural places ain't changed that much, and it's not just big cities that need shelters. Maybe we can save some other Billy from killing his pa to protect his mama and sisters."

If Bella had been physically able, she'd have climbed right out of her booth to hug Emmett silly. As it is, all she can do is grip his hand with both hers atop Rosalie's. "Emmett, it's not old fashioned to say men shouldn't hit women. Nobody should hit someone weaker than they are."

Rose shoots her a smile and Bella thinks she gets it finally -- why Rosalie loves Emmett. It has nothing to do with his very obvious masculinity and everything to do with a gentle soul. If Bella also suspects Rose -- a rape survivor -- might like the sense of protection Emmett offers, Rose doesn't really need it these days, as a vampire. But there are other ways of being saved -- in heart and spirit.

"In any case," Rose says after a minute, "to practice law here in Georgia, I'll have take their state bar this July, then go through the usual ethics and standards check. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to be able to practice in a couple of states; I should do it for North Carolina, too. And it'll no doubt take a while to get this shelter off the ground anyway."

Bella nods, glad that Rose has a realistic grasp of time frames and isn't expecting to open tomorrow. "Since we're starting from scratch, it may be as much as a year before we're fully operational." How funny that she's slipped so quickly into speaking of it all in the first person plural: 'we.' "We have to find a building, establish local contacts with social services, build up supplies, round up donors -- "

"Emmett and I have plenty of money," Rose interrupts. "We don't have to worry about that."

"You can't fund it all yourself," Bella cautions, "even if you are a major donor. It'll look funny in any audit, and non-profits have to be very careful about that sort of thing. There are legit donors we can hit up. Lorraine -- my advisor -- has a lot of contacts."

They wander off into a discussion of details and the restaurant is closing, the wait staff glaring at them, wishing they'd leave already by the time they realize what time it is. So they go back to Bella's place where they continue their plotting session late into the night while Emmett half listens and flips TV channels. Bella is a little surprised to discover Rose hasn't said anything about her shelter idea to the rest of the Cullens, and they finally get around to discussing Rosalie's take on the whole family meltdown.

"Edward was being a melodramatic, selfish ass," she tells Bella, her yellow eyes flashing, if eyes could really be said to flash outside Romance novels. "Esme knuckled under because Edward Can Do No Wrong, and Carlisle wouldn't buck them both because he still feels guilty for turning Edward in the first place -- and he feels guilty because Edward just won't let it go."

Bella keeps her thoughts to herself, but wonders if Rosalie really has room to talk when it comes to not letting things go. Emmett has glanced over as well, his lips curled as if he might be thinking the same thing but with more tolerant fondness for his wife's foibles. "I thought Edward admired Carlisle?" Bella asks -- carefully. She isn't really up to defending Edward, but wants to be fair.

"Oh, he admires and hates him both, but he's too caught up in his little fancy of a perfect family to admit to the latter. Still, he's never forgiven Carlisle for turning him without asking. Truth is, Carlisle never asked any of us."

"Well, we were dying at the time," Emmett points out dryly while still facing the TV. "I never held it against you."

Rose glares at him, then shrugs. "Actually, that's probably why I blame Carlisle less. I didn't want to be a vampire, but it's better than dying if for no other reason than that I could get my revenge." Her eyes slide to Bella's face and her smile is bitter-sickly sweet. "I've never tasted human blood -- the only one in the family besides Carlisle who can say that -- but I've been an angel of vengeance." Her expression says she expects Bella to recoil.

Bella shakes her head. "I'm not going to judge you, Rose. And I suspect you know the whole 'proper release of anger' spiel anyway."

Chin lifting slightly, Rose studies Bella from slitted eyes. "You really have grown up." Then she shrugs again. "No matter. I didn't want to be turned, but I didn't want to die either. And now I have Emmett." She glances over at him and he reaches back with one hand to where she sits cross-legged on Bella's couch while he is sprawled on the carpet at her feet. "I have regrets, and Carlisle should have asked, but . . . " She trails off. "Anyway, Carlisle is the guilty father when it comes to Edward -- never really disciplines him enough, and Edward presses that advantage."

Emmett is hiding a slight smile, and Bella thinks Rose may be white-washing her own self-presentation at Edward's expense. She is also struck by the fact Rose tells this story differently from the way Jasper told it. Jasper had implied that the whole faux-family front had created problems in and of itself, while Rosalie still uses family terminology to speak of the coven, and still calls Edward Carlisle's son.

She wonders how Edward views it all -- realizes he's never said.

"Anyway," Rosalie is saying, "I couldn't take it any more -- Edward's self-involvement and condescending attitude, Carlisle's guilt, Jasper's sulking, Alice's meddling, and Esme's tendency to apologize for everybody. So we moved out." She pauses. Bella waits. "I think I had to get away from them," Rose continues after a moment, "before I realized how much I'd needed to get away in order to heal. We've lived apart from them before but it was always for just a few months, or a couple years. This time, we left with no stated intention of going back. I needed that -- to be free."

"But you did come back," Bella says to prod Rosalie's construction of reality a little.

Rose sighs. "Edward talked to you finally. It's the first positive sign I've seen out of him in ages. And even if -- or I suppose when -- we move here, we won't move in with them. I'm not sure that's a good idea. All of us under one roof like that just makes life into a pressure cooker. We can live near them; we don't have to live with them. A little distance keeps the peace."

"But they're family," Emmett says and looks back at us over his shoulder. Bella thinks he might elaborate, but he doesn't, and she realizes that -- for Emmett -- there is explanation enough in those three words.


A/N: The story of Old Man Pritchard and his son is based on a real-life event that occurred in a small town about the same size as Gatlinburg in the early 1930s. I wish I could say it's unique, but there are many more stories just like it.

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