Welcome to the longest chapter yet. This one just seemed to flow, and I couldn't bear to cut it up. *Pun (that will become obvious later) not intended*

I know I say thanks for the reviews, alerts, messages and all every chapter, but I mean it every time I write it. Thank you! There would be no point to writing this if you guys didn't make me feel so good about it.

Everything but the strange plot below belongs to SM. Her characters are simply fodder for my cannons.

Chapter 14

Emmett's Point of View

"Jacob was the first to see Demetri after he got under Bella's shield, and he went after him. I think you all saw that part."

They nodded quickly, as if to rush me along, but that wasn't going to happen. I loved telling stories, especially when they have me starring as the hero.

"Demetri tossed Jacob like a pillow. What an idiot. Who goes after the Volturi's 'best fighter' alone?" I added air quotes for effect. Bella growled a little under her breath. It sounded more like an angry kitten than the vicious mother lion she'd been.

"I saw Seth, Leah and Jacob closing in on him, once Jacob had a second to get himself together. There was no way I was going to let Demetri get away, so as they circled him, I dove over the wolves and tackled him to the ground.

"Unfortunately, the wolves jumped at the exact same time and just started shredding everything in sight with their teeth." I rubbed my left shoulder. "Seth, maybe it was Leah, I don't know - a wolf that wasn't Jacob sunk it's teeth into my shoulder. I guess he thought I was Demetri."

Bella winced. She hadn't even seen the damage a wolf could do to a vampire first hand like the rest of us had in the fight against Victoria's newborns. Those dogs were vicious.

"So, it took a second to get whoever it was to unlock their jaw, and in that time the other two wolves had torn off Demetri's arms. I am so glad their aim was better than the one who attacked me.

"I ripped off his head, and as the only one with thumbs and a lighter, I got to start the bonfire," I raised my hand to Edward for a high-five which he gave me begrudgingly. He either didn't much care, or he was a pretty weak human. I figured it was the second one, as my story was epic.

"Then I did a bit of a touchdown dance around the Demetri fire," I started to get up to demonstrate, but Carlisle shot me one of his looks.

"Sorry. Jake liked it."

"But how did you die, Emmett?"

Bella's question kind of hung in the air as I tried to remember. What came to me next made my skin feel cold, and the ham sandwiches weren't sitting in my stomach very well.

"Edward screamed." I could hear it in my head. I suddenly understood what the phrase 'my blood ran cold' actually meant.

The silence continued so I kept talking in hopes drowning out the sounds in my head.

"Felix hurt you," I said carefully while looking at Bella. I remembered every sound and movement leading to her death, but I didn't think it would help anyone, least of all Edward, for me to relive it.

"Edward was trying to get there, but two of the Volturi Guard were in front of him. I tried to get to them before they actually grabbed him but I was too late. He fought with them but they weren't letting go.

"I was almost there, but something leveled me. It felt like every bone had been ripped from my body and had been replaced with burning hot metal in one second."

"Jane," Edward said darkly.

"I guess," I shrugged. "I was hard to see what was going on around me, that's how much it hurt. After what felt like hours, but was probably less than a minute, everything went black. Then I was here."

"Was there furniture?" Bella asked. She seemed obsessed with the furniture thing, as did Carlisle.

"Yeah. I was laying on my and Rose's bed. Dressed like a total loser in these weird wool pants that itched like crazy."

"You were dressed similarly to the way you were dressed the day you died, Emmett," Carlisle said. "As was I, but I changed clothes before leaving my room. I didn't really understand where I was, but on the off chance that I ran into someone else I didn't want to be seen as strange or out of place."

"Out of place in the afterlife," Bella said to no one. "Sounds like a song title."

"You're also dressed in the style of the period in which you died Edward," Carlisle said.

"Well that answers that one. I thought Edward just had no taste," I joked.

"Me too. These are the same jeans I wore to the ballet studio too, but I know the doctors cut them off me at the hospital. And my scar is gone," Bella said holding her wrist up from the table to show us. "I expected waking up human would make it come back, but it didn't."

"Interesting," Carlisle said, resuming his pacing. "So we all awoke in nearly the same fashion as we died, but without the injuries we sustained as humans. As we all healed when we became vampires I can only assume that the healing carried over."

Thank god, I thought. I could barely remember my guts hanging out of my body as Rose brought me to Carlisle after the bear attack that would have killed me if the venom hadn't. I really didn't want to remember it.

"So that brings us back to the furniture," Bella said.

"Yes," said Carlisle. "That's still a mystery."

"I think I understand it," Edward said, "But I need Emmett to answer one question first, to test my theory."

Me? What did I know.

"What was your first thought when you awoke in your room?" He asked.

I didn't know, and I couldn't really understand the point of his question. The three of them were staring at me, waiting for an answer I didn't have. Edward read the confusion on my face.

"Don't think about it, Emmett," he said quietly. "Just answer."

I closed my eyes and pretended it was all happening again. The battle, the pain, opening my eyes.

"Home," I said. "I thought, 'I'm home.'"

"Home," Edward repeated. He looked at Bella next.

"What did you say to me when you said you wanted to leave the meadow?"

"I said that I wanted to go home," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Edward, let me see if I'm following your thinking correctly," Carlisle began. "You believe that the reason there was furniture in your cottage is because Bella recognized it as her home. The reason this house was furnished when I awoke was because Emmett first saw this as his home?"

Carlisle was clearly excited to have a theory he could work with.

"Exactly," Edward said. He looked more like the confident, and smug, Edward we all knew and loved. Even if he wasn't as tough as he was before.

"Great, so now we understand the stupid furniture thing," I still didn't see its importance. I continued, "But where are we? I mean, we're dead right. Actually dead this time."

"I'm afraid so," Carlisle looked pained. "And I can only suppose that if we are the only members of our family here, everyone else survived."

The idea that Rosalie was alive made my heart beat faster. My angel lived to fight another day. Good girl. But the thought that I would never see her again was a lot to take in.

"I think I need some air," I told my family.

"By all means," Carlisle said. "Would you like one of us to go outside with you?"

"No thanks. I think I just need sometime to take all of this in."

I went out onto the step to think about all of the images rolling around in my head.

As I sat down, a weakness went through me, and I started to shake. Telling my story had seemed great, until I really thought about the ending. My ending. I wasn't the hero in my story. I was the idiot who got himself killed by jumping into a fight without watching what was going on around me. I was dead. For real this time.

Dying the first time hadn't seemed like a big deal. I'd always been good at taking things in stride and making the best out of them. After the bear attacked me, and I was laying on the ground waiting to die, it just seemed inevitable. There was nothing I could do so I might as well go with the flow.

When I heard something attack the bear I was even a little bit pumped that at least the animal that killed me was getting his. When Rose picked me up off the ground I thought she was an angel coming to take me to God. It wasn't so bad. I might have been dying, but I had the prettiest girl in the world with me.

Carlisle scared the crap out of me. I thought he was God, and since I was in even more pain once he'd shown up, he must have been angry. I hadn't been the best guy in my 20 years, so Hell seemed a likely option. But my angel never left me.

When the pain started to go away, she was still there. When I could feel my hands again, instead of just the burning in them, she was holding them in hers. While Carlisle tried to explain that I wasn't human anymore, she sat by my side adding her own little explanations. Being a vampire was fine by me, but was she going to stay with me forever?

Hearing Rosalie's laugh when I asked her if she'd stay with me and teach me how to be a vampire was like music. The most beautiful choir of voices all singing for me. She said she'd stay with me forever, longer even, if I wanted her to.

I got the girl, a family and I was the strongest guy I knew. Not a bad deal all tolled. Dying was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Now it was the worst.

Rose was my rock. My wife. The only person who really got me. I knew everyone else loved me, but they thought of me as big crazy Emmett. I wasn't talented like Edward and Alice, or smart like Jasper and Carlisle. But to Rose I was everything.

I was the only person she'd pour her heart out to when she was feeling bad, and the only one who could make her smile when she was angry. Rose took a lot of flack for wanting to kill Bella when Edward first found her. It wasn't because she was mean, she just wanted to protect me. She would do anything for me, as I would for her.

That was over now. I didn't even know where she was, or if she even knew I was dead.

If she and Jacob felt Renesmee was threatened they'd planned to take off with her. Rosalie booked travel for the three of them to get to Rio and then Esme's Island. It seemed like a good plan, because other than Carlisle, Esme, Edward and Bella, none of us had ever been there before. The chances of Aro learning its location, or even of its existence through our thoughts seemed unlikely. I was going to tell the rest of the family about it once we'd dealt with the Volturi and we could all meet up there. The perfect plan.

Except that now the only person aside from Rose and Jacob who knew the plan was dead and they were headed to an island no one would think to look for them on.

My hands moved on their own to cover my face, and it was wet. I didn't remember crying when I was human, it wasn't something guys did in my day. But I was really crying now, for all of us.

It felt like a hole was ripped through my chest. Worse than the bear attack or Jane, because that had only been physical pain. This felt like my existence was being ripped apart, one chunk at a time.

I wrapped my arms around my legs and let go. Everything I'd ever felt, good, bad, love, anger flowed from my eyes. I wept like a girl for Rose, now all alone in the world, and I wept for me. This couldn't be Heaven because I didn't have my angel.

The door opened and closed behind me, but I didn't look up. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.

Bella squeezed her way into the space next to me on the step. She didn't talk, she just rubbed my back and sat there for a while listening to me cry. When I stopped shaking she started to speak.

"Edward left me once. I'm sure you remember it. You all left."

I remembered, but I didn't answer. We all still felt bad about what happened, even after everything had turned out right in the end.

She continued, "It was like everything that had been good about my life, everything that was right, was taken away from me. I felt like I couldn't go on living my life because he'd taken with him everything that mattered.

"There was a gaping hole in my chest. I knew my heart was still inside of me because it hurt. With every beat more pain flowed into my veins. It was like drowning from the inside out. If I really had to pick I'd say it hurt more than being changed. For months I couldn't talk, or eat, or sleep without waking up screaming. Everyone was afraid. Some of me, some for me.

"Edward left me because he thought he was doing me a favour by giving me a normal human life. He chose to leave me and if I'm honest I don't think I've ever stopped being hurt. I understand his motives, and I know how much it hurt him in turn. I know he loves me and always will, but that time will always be there inside me, below the surface.

"Rosalie didn't leave you. You died. That's terrible, and I know you're hurting a lot right now. That's how it's supposed to be when you lose the person you love. But you need to remember that she loved you more than anything. You had more than 70 years together. That's more than most people get.

"Rose is alive, and she's hurting now too, because you're gone. But you have both been loved. Not only been loved, but felt the most powerful kind of love imaginable. That's something to hold on to. No matter how much it hurts right now."

Bella's words made sense, and for the first time I really understood what it must have been like for her while we were gone. Sure Edward and Alice had seen it in their heads, but I felt it. Her words didn't lessen the pain, but she gave me other ways to think about it.

"Thank you," I said without looking at her.

"Anytime big brother." I could hear the smile in her voice.

I finally felt I could lift my head without losing it again. I noticed the sun was going down. It looked like it was balancing on the tops of the trees and everything was bathed in an orange glow. It was beautiful. Great, I'm turning into a big wimp, I thought.

"Time to go back in?" she asked.

"Might as well," I answered. "Were there any sandwiches left when you came outside?"

Oh Emmett. Sigh. Reviews are like Emmett's sunset, beautiful and appreciated.