A/N: Okay, so here it is...the moment we've all been waiting for...so i'll keep it short...

This chapter was WAY harder than I thought it would be! I wrote it and it sucked. So I rewrote it and it sucked again. So I wrote it a third time...and finally got it right!

Thank you, G, for talking it out with me and for reading the sucky version without throwing up! heehee

L, I'm glad you're back home! Even though it took 24 extra hours and you had to toss your toothpaste at the airport! :)

One final thought...my fabulous, sweet, wonderful, supportive hubby brought me flowers tonight...roses...and lilies! awww!! :)

I own...tons of new sharpies for school (I LOVE school supplies!) and a new pair of chocolate brown chuck taylors! :)

I do not own...anything Twilight, except the books...and four t-shirts...and the movie...and...okay, okay, you get it!

READ!!!!!
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Chapter Twenty

Together

Rosalie

"Rose," Emmett said. "Wake up, baby."

"Emmett?" I asked sleepily. I'd had this dream before, and I didn't want to open my eyes to find he wasn't really there.

"Good morning, doll face," he said, placing a kiss on my forehead and pushing the hair out of my face.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. Emmett's smiling face was right in front of mine. My vision was a little fuzzy from sleep, but still it was there. I reached out and ran my fingers down the line of his jaw. He was really there. I was really there.

"Mmm...good morning," I said. Closing my eyes tight and opening them again, I smiled to see he was still laying there, smiling at me, dimples and all.

"What was that?" He asked, laughing quietly.

"I was just checking," I said. "Making sure I'm really awake. That I'm really here. That it isn't a dream this time."

Running the back of his hand along my cheek, he said, "I know the feeling." He reached out and pulled me close to his chest so my face was nestled in the crook of his neck. "I woke up like five times last night and turned on the lamp to make sure myself," he said.

I wrapped my arm around his waist and moved as close to him as I could get. It was then that I remembered we were both naked, as I could feel him pressing against me. I let my hand fall to his hip and traced small circles on his skin with my fingernail. One of his hands snaked around my neck while the other made its way around my waist, and he pulled me so I was on top of him. Crushing his lips to mine, I remembered the night before. The night I arrived in Seattle.

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"We'll be landing in ten minutes, Ms Hale," Henry said over the intercom.

Anna, the flight attendant, came walking out from behind the curtain to check on me. "Are you ready?" She had asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I said.

I reached into my purse and pulled out Emmett's glasses. I had found them on my bedside table when I was packing. I thought about how handsome he looked wearing them while he was sitting at bar in my apartment reading the newspaper. I imagined him searching his office for them when he realized he didn't have them. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when I gave them back.

Angela had been so helpful in arranging my flight to Seattle. I didn't want to call Alice or Bella too soon because I didn't want them to have to keep the secret for any longer than necessary. Angela promised to keep my plans to herself until I arrived in Seattle. I planned to call Alice as soon as we landed.

Angela had arranged for Emmett's driver, Felix, to pick me up and take me to Emmett's house. Once I was in the car and we were on the way, I called Alice.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Alice," I said. "It's Rosalie."

"Rosalie! Hi!" She squealed. "How are you?"

"I'm good," I said. "Actually, I'm better than good, I hope. I need to tell you something, Alice, but I need to make sure you're alone. Are you alone?"

"Well, Jasper is here, but no one else," she said. I could almost see her bouncing up and down, she sounded so excited.

"Okay," I said. I took a deep breath and said, "Alice, I'm in Seattle....Felix is driving me to Emmett's house right now."

"OhmygodRosalie!Ican'tbelieveit!Didyoujustsayyou'reinSeattle?!" She shrieked.

Laughing, I shrieked back, "Yes! That's what I said!"

"Holy shit! Jasper!" she cried, "Rosalie is in Seattle! She's on her way to Emmett's house right now! Oh my god, Rosalie! Emmett is going to freak! I mean, he's going to absolutely freak out!"

"I hope you mean freak out in a good way, Alice," I said.

"Hell yes I mean in a good way!" She said. "I mean it, Rosalie! He's going to die! But what happened? When did you decide to come here? How did you get here so fast? How did you get with Felix? How did I not see this?"

"Slow down, Alice! One question at a time!" I said. I went on to explain how I had called Angela on Tuesday night after I read Emmett's letter. I told her how Angela arranged for Henry to fly me from Austin and for Felix to pick me up at the airport. Of course, she pretended to be mad at me for not calling her sooner and for not letting her and Bella pick me up.

"Shit, Rosalie! I'm just in shock! I'm so happy, though! I swear, I wish you could take a picture of his face when he sees you!" She laughed to herself and said, "You know, I hope he's home...what am I saying, he never goes anywhere, of course he's home."

The thought that Emmett might not be home hadn't exactly been factored into my plan, and I suddenly panicked that he might not be there.

"Holy hell, Alice!" I cried. "What if he's not? Then what am I going to do?"

"Calm down, Rosalie. He'll be there," she said. "But I can call him with some stupid question if you want me to, just to make sure."

"God, Alice, that would be great! Text me after you call him, okay?"

Alice agreed and we said goodbye. Five minutes later, I got a text.

He's home!! Have fun! Can't wait to see you!

Twenty minutes later, Felix pulled up at the gate to Emmett's house. Punching in a code on the keypad on the side of the driveway, the gate slowly opened. Felix turned off the headlights as we pulled into the circular drive.

Stopping the car halfway through, he turned to me and said, "If I go any further I'm afraid he'll see me. He's usually in the front room at night."

Taking my bag in my hand, I opened the car door and stepped out. I thanked Felix, and he wished me luck. I stood frozen in place as Felix slowly backed the car out of the driveway. Finally, I took a deep breath and walked to the front door. My hand was shaking as I reached up to knock on the large wooden door. I held my breath and waited for the door to open.

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"Hey," Emmett said, "where did you go just now?"

"Sorry," I said, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "I was just thinking about last night."

"What about last night?" He asked, wagging his eyebrows at me.

"All of it," I said. "The plane ride, calling Alice, freaking out because I thought you might not be home, the look on your face when you saw me."

"Yeah," he said, "I'm sure that was definitely one for the scrapbook."

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Emmett

Even though I was holding her body next to mine, I still couldn't believe Rose was actually here. In my house. In my bed. I hadn't been exaggerating when I told her how often I'd woken up the night before. Even now, in the clear light of day, it was still a little hard to believe. Seeing her smiling down at me, with her hair all disheveled and her eyes still sleepy, all I wanted to do was kiss her.

"I still can't believe you're here," I said, running my hands up and down her back.

"I know," she said. "Me either."

"You know, you never really did tell me how you managed to get all this past Alice," I said.

Rose laughed and rolled onto her side next to me. She propped herself up on her elbow and let her hand fall onto my chest.

"Well," she said, "I didn't know for sure that she wouldn't see it, but I didn't want her to have to be with you all day and have to keep it a secret. I knew I'd never get a flight out so quickly, so I called Angela. I knew she felt bad about the way things went down because Jess emailed me and told me. I thought maybe if she could help get me here, she might not feel so bad."

"That explains why I didn't see Weber at work yesterday. She was avoiding me," I said, putting the pieces together.

I had called Angela several times and got her voicemail. She had her assistant call Alice back, and she never once came into my office. I had chalked it up to "the incident" but apparently I was wrong.

"So," I asked, "you really didn't call Alice until you got here?"

"Nope," she smiled. "God, Em, I wish you could have heard her on the phone when I told her where I was! She was squealing and talking so fast I couldn't understand a word she said!"

I would have laughed along with her, imagining Alice's shrieking, but I was too caught up in the fact that Rose had just called me "Em". No one called me that except my family. The people who loved me the most. I was so overcome with emotion, knowing Rose would be counted among those people now, that I stopped her talking by leaning over and kissing her again.

"So, do you have to go to work today?" She asked, stretching her legs and rolling onto her back.

"I don't want to," I said, "but I have three meetings today....I can call Alice and have her reschedule, though."

"No," she said, "you should at least go to your meetings." She reached her hand out and touched my cheek. "I'll be here when you get back."

Reluctantly, we got out of bed and made our way down to the kitchen. I showed Rose where everything was and then started the coffee.

"Come take a shower with me," I said, holding my hand out to her.

Rose didn't say a word, she just took my hand and led me back up to my room.

Stepping into the shower, I pulled Rose underneath the water first. She closed her eyes and let her head fall into the spray, getting her hair wet. The water ran down her neck, along her collarbone, between her breasts. She opened her eyes and caught me staring.

"You know," she smiled, "one really ought to get dirty before showering..."

That was all it took. I grabbed her by the waist and kissed her hard. Rose slipped her hand between our slick bodies and wrapped it around my hard dick. Slipping her tongue into my mouth as she tightened her grip on me, I moaned into her, pushing her into the wall. My own hands took hold of one of her breasts and her hair, tugging gently, pulling her head back enough so I could lick her neck.

"God, Emmett," she sighed, "I missed you so much...."

"I missed you, too, baby," I moaned into her skin.

Removing her hand from my length, I took both her wrists in one of my hands and held them above her head on the wall. I lifted her ass up with my other hand and lowered her down onto me. The feeling of being buried in her warmth again made my whole body tremble. Wrapping her legs around mine, she ground her hips against me.

"God....oh, Emmett..."

Thrusting into her faster and harder, she dipped her head to rest on my shoulder and moved with me.

"Shit, Rose....oh, baby.....mmmmm, yeah....."

"Harder...." she moaned, "please, baby.....harder...."

I knew if I thrust any harder, that I wouldn't last long. Feeling her hips as they came down on mine, the contrast of the air and water against me when I pulled out and the heat that enveloped me when I pushed in.....I slowed my pace just a little causing her to moan again.

"Faster," she breathed into my neck, "fuck me, baby...."

Rose lifted her head and put her forehead against mine, running her tongue along the line of my bottom lip.

I took her mouth in mine and thrust harder, faster, until I could feel her walls tighten around me. Her stomach muscles twitched and her legs shook slightly as she found her release. One slow thrust later, I whispered my love for her as I came into her.

I let go of her wrists and her arms fell to her side. I held her until our breathing had returned to normal.

Rose stepped to the side and took the shampoo in her hand, squeezing some into her palm before rubbing it into her hair.

"You know," she said, sniffing, "you're going to have to let me girl this place up a little bit."

I laughed, "If that means we get to do that every morning, you can girl it up as much as you want to, babe."

We finished our shower and Rose went into the bedroom while I got dressed for work. When I came out of the bathroom, Rose was lying in the middle of my bed, wearing my robe, sound asleep.

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her for a moment. I remembered the first time I had woken up next to this amazing creature and how absolutely beautiful she looked sleeping that morning. Brushing my fingers through her still damp hair, I thought back to the night before, when she came back to me.

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It was late, past ten o'clock, and I was in the living room watching the local news when my phone rang.

"Hello, Alice," I said when I answered.

"Hey big brother," she sang into the phone. "Whatcha doing?"

"Just watching the news," I said, wondering what she was up to. "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing really," she said. "I was just getting ready for tomorrow and wanted to make sure that nine o'clock was okay for your meeting with Angela and the attorneys tomorrow because I can reschedule it for later if you want."

Alice never called me at night to talk about work so I knew her question was some kind of ruse to find out some other piece of information. I just wished I knew what she really wanted to know.

"No," I said, "nine is okay with me. I'll be in at seven anyway..."

"Okay," she said. "I guess I'll see you in the morning, then."

"See you in the morning," I said.

"Have a good night, Em," she said.

"You, too," I said, still entirely confused.

We hung up and decided not to worry about whatever it was she was trying to figure out.

LJ was scratching at the back door, so I decided to take him out in the back yard. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and sat on the back deck while LJ ran around the lawn and took care of business. Twenty minutes later, I called to him and he ran towards the house. I opened the back door to let him in, but he stopped just in front of it and turned, taking off around the side of the house.

I followed, calling after him, "LJ! Get back here!"

He ran around to the front of the house, and I heard a small squeal that sounded like a woman's voice.

What the hell?

The front gate was closed and the bell hadn't rung and that voice did not belong to Alice.

I came around the corner and stopped dead still. LJ was jumping up on a woman standing at my front door. Her back was to me, but the porch light caught her blonde hair as she reached down to pet my dog.

Is that? It can't be. Can it....?

"Rose?" I said quietly to myself, walking toward my front porch. I didn't want to scare her since I was standing in the dark, so I called out to the dog as I jogged over, "LJ! Down!"

Rose turned at the sound of my voice. She looked nervous and tired, but even more beautiful than I remembered.

"Rose?" I said as I approached. "What...how....I...wow...." I was stammering like an idiot, but I was in shock.

"Hey, Emmett," she said. She held something out to me. "I found these at my apartment and I thought....well, I thought you might need them so I figured I'd bring them to you..." I realized then that she was holding my missing glasses.

Stepping closer to her, I took the glasses out of her hand. "I wondered where these were," I said, slipping the frames into my pocket. "So, you came all the way to Seattle just to give me my glasses?" I smiled.

"Well," she said, smiling a little as well. "I also wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" I asked. I had imagined she had a lot of things to say to me, but "thank you" wasn't anywhere on the list.

"Yes," she said, pulling a folded piece of paper out from her pocket. "No one's ever written me a love letter before."

"I should tell you," I said, stepping closer still, "I had some help with that letter."

She quirked an eyebrow at me and asked, "Bella?"

"How did you know?" I asked.

"Lucky guess," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Besides, if Alice had helped, it would have said something like, 'I'm a colossal dumb ass, please don't hold it against me'."

"True enough," I laughed.

Rose clutched the paper to her chest, closed her eyes and whispered, "I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone else in this world. Before you, I was nothing. My life was empty. The worst part is that I didn't know how empty is was until I found you."

"That's true, Rose," I said quietly, reaching out to touch her cheek with the back of my hand. "Every word....God, I'm so sorry..." Slowly, she opened her eyes and slowly, tears started to fall from them. Brushing the tears from her face, I whispered, "I love you so much...please say you'll forgive me."

Placing her hand on top of mine that was still on her cheek, she said, "I already have. I love you, too, so much."

Taking her into my arms, I kissed her, and I knew in that moment that everything would be alright.

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The ringing of my phone brought me back to the present. Taking the phone out of my pocket, I walked into the hallway so I wouldn't wake Rose. Looking at the caller ID, I was not surprised to see it was Alice calling.

"Good morning, Alice," I said.

"Is it?" She asked.

"You know damn well it is," I laughed, "you meddling pixie."

Alice laughed and squealed, "Yay! So Rose is there? And you guys are okay?"

"Yes, she's here and yes, we are more than okay," I said, smiling to myself.

"Great!" She said. "I'll make some calls and cancel your day and..."

"No," I said. "Rose is sleeping. I'm going to come into the office for the meeting."

"Are you sure?" Alice asked, sounding like she thought I had lost my mind. "I mean, don't you want to spend the day with Rose? I'm sure you two still have some...making up to do."

Looking back into my bedroom at Rose sleeping in my bed, I smiled and said, "I'm sure, Alice. Rose isn't going anywhere. She'll be right here when I get home."

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End Notes: All together now...Awww! :) I hope you like the way I did this...

There's one more chapter before the Epilogue *sniff, sniff* but I promise it'll be a good one! :)

I'm kinda sad because the end is near and this has been such a fabulous ride for me! Y'all have been so great and supportive and I love, love, love reading your reviews!

~cb