Hi, so here is another chapter, there are now only four more chapters left of this story so i hope you all enjoy. I worked quite hard on this one so please let me know what you think.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine, just this chapter, Lena and some history of Emmett's that i embelished.
Please Read and Review and let me know waht you think. A big thank you to all of you who have done this so far!
And I wish all of you reading this all the best.
There In The Disappearing Light
Chapter 21-The Hard Part.
Lena and Emmett meet for a summit, in which they talk through things. Emmett reaches a decision and plans for the future are made.
He was nervous.
Odd really, he was a vampire, an immortal creature and he was feeling nervous because some girl was about to get off the plane and speak to him.
Emmett had not felt nervous for a long time. Throughout the Volturi debacle he had felt a combination of excitement, sheer determination to ensure that their plan would work and the phantom twinge of pain that came whenever he imagined life without Rosalie. Through the battle with the Newborns he had felt nothing but excitement and impatience. He had not worried about Rosalie as much as he had with the Volturi because he had known that she could handle herself against Newborns and despite the fact that she had smelt like ash and dead vampire (and ickly sweet smell) for hours she had been fine.
The last time he had felt this nervous was when he was courting Rosalie. Even human, nerves were not something he was attuned too. He didn't know to feel them. Courting Rosalie, battling the blood lust with the love that had confused the hell out of him in those painful early days had been a different story as had asking for her hand in marriage (the first time) and the first time he had taken her to bed determined to make sure that she only remembered him and not the phantom touches of all those other shits who had never deserved the moniker of man.
Even now though he was dead, his family was dead and his empire scattered into the dust the very thought of Royce King II made his mouth pool with venom and a growl build up within his throat.
He shook his head trying to rid himself of that thought least he scare some humans and draw unnecessary attention to himself.
The airport for a Friday night was busy. Emmett had always preferred to run or swim if they were travelling a bone of contention between himself and his wife who thought that swimming in silk was sacrilege. Planes had never interested him. He had watched them evolve over the years and they had never sat right with him, plus the draining lack of stimulus on them and the cramped leg room—oh the leg room! It didn't bare even thinking about. And that was before you got to the blood and the sweat and the thirst.
But back to the earlier point.
He had not told Rosalie that he was here.
He had listened to Lena's response that she was coming home and that she wanted to talk to him and Rosalie about the future and he had calmly replied that he would meet her at the airport, kissed his wife, didn't catch Edward's eye, went for a run, found himself at the border and had decimated a small forest.
All in all he was rather proud of that response.
The reason he had not told Rosalie was really very simple. He was not going to cause his wife pain if he could avoid it. She had done an admirable job of pretending that the last two months had not hurt and had thrown herself into demolishing and restoring a rather old Jaguar and with the exception perhaps of Jasper and Esme she had fooled all of them. She didn't even try with Emmett. The fact that she was still vacuuming Lena's room, changing the sheets and making sure the clothes were sprayed with some sort of lavender spray so that they were fresh was telling as was the fact that the freezer seemed to have some of Lena's favourite things just waiting their neatly stocked in a small pile.
Her emotions had been completely intact. She didn't talk to him about her feelings that much but he had been studying Rosalie Hale since he had opened his eyes to this new immortal world and seen her watching him from the corner of the room. He knew that she was understanding things in ways that she never had before. Indeed so was Emmett. He understood now what Edward's trip to Volterra had done his parents, he understood how it had felt for them when Edward had disappeared for nearly fifty years, he could understand what it had been like for them when Alice and Jasper had disappeared in their hour of need. He understood all of that and more and he found that he was desperate to see this little thing that had come into his life and somehow made it very difficult to leave.
He knew that their kind felt more. It was a natural chemical thing, their emotions were heightened and they formed attachments easier than most humans because when they formed them they stayed for all eternity.
Emmett found however that this conversation Lena had wanted to have could go either way. She could either want to come home and become a member of the family or she could leave and go travelling again—Emmett had never had to worry about money since becoming a Cullen but he had caught a glimpse at some of the bills and he had to hide his wince. Lena was not having a cheep breakdown in fact she was comfortably in hotel rooms ever night eating steak done blue and downloading episodes of 'The Golden Girls' by the series.
Whatever decision she made Emmett knew it would be forever. And if it was the one where she chose to leave them, he would take the pain first and he would be the one to break the news to his wife.
He could smell when Lena got off the plane because the smell of her didn't change. Between the stench of stale perfume and dirt and grime he was attuned to the smell of her. Her hair which was still the same coconut shampoo and conditioner that she used, the body spray she covered herself with and the lotion that smelt like roses. That was before he saw her.
She was coming round a pillar suitcase in hand. A small carry on. Emmett watched silently in a manner that he thought and hoped was discreet and he catalogued all the changes. Two months in a nearly mature half vampire was the difference between looking like a child and looking like an adult.
Her hair was still the same length but the blonde had become a shader darker with the sun, her skin was still pale but there was a glow about it that Emmett suspected also came with the sun exposure that she had been getting. She was wearing a pair of black high waisted shorts and a t-shirt that was cropped. She was wearing sunglasses perched on her head and her feet were crammed into converse sneakers. She looked like the average backpacker come home from travelling and Emmett taking her in suddenly had the urge to go to her throw his jacket over her and lecture her about inappropriate attire.
In human terms she was fifteen, in vampire terms probably seven, she didn't need to be showing any leg or midriff for crying out loud!
She caught sight of him and then stopped. Emmett smiled and waved trying to show that he was not going to shout or yell…in fact all he wanted to do was give the kid a hug. Christ was this what actual parents went through? Lena seemed to come to some internal decision and then she walked through the airport towards him. Emmett did a quick check of the area behind her and noted with a flicker of relief that she had come alone and that the werewolf was not there. That was a good thing on two accounts. He wanted to talk to Lena alone and trying to get werewolf stench out of leather upholstery was a utter bitch.
Thank God Carlisle had seen reason and got Jacob his own car.
"Hi" Lena said coming over. Emmett took note of the bags under her eyes and the way she was steadily ignoring looking him in the face. Emmett sighed again feeling something, some sort of emotion that was brewing somewhere inside of him making his teeth clench.
"Hi" he said gently. Rosalie was always going on about not scaring Lena when she came back same as she had when she had murdered her foster parents and had promptly fainted in her arms.
"You hungry?" he asked because a prolonged living arrangement with Nessie and Bella had taught him that humans needed to eat a lot more than vampires. She nodded and Emmett opened the car door on the passenger side and she slid in dumping her bag at her feet and using it as some sort of a foot rest.
He had no idea where to take her but he knew she liked pizza so he pulled up at an Italian place he knew by name only. A folded ball of bills saw them to a booth and some semblance of privacy and Lena had ordered a coke, something called bruschetta, mushroom ravioli and a pepperoni pizza and a beer that Emmett supposed he was supposed to be drinking rather than her but she would inevitably drink. He did not know much about food—the little he could remember was the thin stew his mother used to serve nine times out of ten and the fact that meat was always considered a treat.
There was a pause where the food was delivered and Lena promptly began to eat as if she had not ate before. Emmett looked at it with distain. He would never understand the appeal of food like that.
"Werewolf not with you?"
"No, it's finals week in La Push. He's staying there but…if things go a certain way…I might be going back so…" she kept eating but clinically. Emmett took that on the chin though he had no idea what she was thinking.
"Why are you here Lena?" he said finally as her food was being delivered. "Why did you want to meet?"
Lena took a gulp of the beer and then passed it back to him before they could be pulled up.
"I thought I owed you an explanation"
Emmett snorted, he really didn't want to but he wanted to shake the girl silly. An explanation was the least of the things that she owed him.
"I'm sorry if I put you in danger by killing those girls" she said finally her hair covering her face. Emmett sighed again. He'd had more air in his lungs during this conversation than the entire decade of the 1960s—drugs were never good for vampires to breathe in—and resisted the urge to snap.
"That is the least of my worries. Lena we can take care of ourselves and you produced a crime scene that would fool CSI. What means more to me was what happened afterwards. What happened when you left and all we got was a shit tone of bills and a few phone calls from Jacob from his father that told us you were shacked up with some wolf I didn't get a chance to threaten!"
Lena stared at him for a second.
"That's really all you care about? I mean—" she lowered her voice so that only Emmett with his vampire hearing could pick up on. "I killed two people?!" She shook her head and Emmett felt the bizarre urge to laugh. Kid really didn't have a clue did she?
Lena took a piece of that disgusting cheese thing between her teeth and tugged off a mouthful looking pensive. Emmett stared at her for a second and then decided to just go with honesty.
"Lena, I don't care about that, you messed up yeah but you are not the first in this family and not the last to do that. I have drank a lot of human blood, Jasper did it for nearly a hundred years, Edward went on a killing spree. Esme slipped up once and ended up creating a ten mile car accident. Even Alice has had her moments it's why we avoid Baltimore. Even Rosalie has killed. If you want to hold yourself up to a higher standard try Carlisle but I promise you it took him nearly four centuries. At some point I imagine Bella will slip. If you think for a second that any of us would cast you out over that then you are really mistaken"
Lena stared at him for a second and then took another slice pushing the dish towards him. "At least have a bite" she said finally. "Otherwise it looks strange"
Emmett took a slice and chewed resisting the urge to throw it up. God he was sure dirt tasted better than this. He put the slice back and Lena picked it up again and ate with gusto and clearly without issue. She looked at him again her blue eyes wide.
"Ok" she said finally. "But I had to figure that out for myself. I am responsible for four deaths, if they had found that out in some states that's the needle."
Emmett snorted. "Wouldn't get near the skin" he said firmly. They were still whispering and he noticed that the waitress was eyeing the table behind them for a couple. He shot her his most frightening look and she directed them to a place across the restaurant. He wanted privacy where he wasn't overheard and the woman had made a seven hundred dollar tip out of it.
Lena eyed him in a slightly judgemental way for a second and then decided to cut to the chase and come out with it.
"And that whole thing I overheard…about me being your daughter?"
And there it was.
Emmett paused thinking hard. He was suddenly painfully aware that his own hopes (not to mention the hopes of his wife) were on the edge of something here. There was no point in denying it. And there was no point in denying his feelings for this incredibly frustrating but yet wonderful kid sat in front of him her focus on her pasta that was dripping with some sort of cream sauce that made Emmett want to puke just looking at it.
"Truth?" he said finally.
Lena nodded.
"Lena, let me explain somethings first. The way our kind work is different from the average human. Think of the most loving and wonderful marriage you can think of, were the people don't even think about looking at someone else because their love is too strong and too powerful. And then you multiply it by ten thousand and your not even in the same ball park as what we feel for each other. We feel so deeply that when our other half is destroyed or leaves us we physically cannot go on. It's beyond any agony that we have ever been through. I have only been in one situation where I have imagined the very real possibility of losing Rosalie and even now…"
He shook his head both to stop the conversation and to stop the thought because he was not sure how to tell this kid that even the very thought of losing Rosalie had his long dormant heart thrashing in such pain he wanted to curl into a corner and never get up again.
"What I am trying to say is that…look…I…Rosalie and I feel that way for you, in the same way Esme and Carlisle feel about us. And we feel it deeply. Lena" he leaned forwards because it was imperative he understood this. "We will feel like this for eternity. No matter what you do."
Lena looked at him for a long time and then she dropped her eyes back to her pasta clinically taking another bite and swallowing another bite of pasta. There was a pause and then when she looked up he saw the tears in her eyes.
"Even after I left? You still want me even though I left you, even though I think I love Embry?"
Emmett laughed. Several patrons looked around in alarm. Lena took that opportunity to down the rest of the beer in three gulps. He shook his head again trying to look less…well…like a vampire.
"Darling" he said finally. "Rose and me are gonna want you for the rest of eternity. Even if you never call us Mom and Dad, even if we never have anything beyond what we have now"
"But I killed my Mom" Lena said her eyes over bright and Emmett felt an urge to do something—anything—to stop those tears from falling. "I killed her and then if you get to my father…I mean Emmett I am either the product of rape or the product of a union which decimated a woman. How can you love me?"
Emmett reached out and took one thin hand the nails covered in chipped navy blue polish in his own.
"Lena look at me"
She did a bit reluctantly.
"Lena…one day Rose will tell you the story of how she became a vampire and when she does you will understand that the world cannot function without monsters within it. As far as we are concerned it doesn't matter. It never did matter. And if I was your parent, mother or father I would damn proud of you and the person and the character you are. Can you let Rosalie and me love you for that. Can you love us?"
Lena hiccupped.
"Yes" she said finally. "But…it might be a century or two before I call you Dad"
"Ah that's ok kid." He said finally when he could use words again.
Emmett grinned feeling lighter than he had done in a long time. This was a new feeling—one he had never envisioned feeling—god when he got home he was giving Carlisle a hug.
A big one. Edward was right, they owed him so much for this extraordinary life.
Lena turned back to her pasta.
"You think Rosalie will want me back?"
Emmett grinned again.
"Providing you go to school, get a degree, don't disappear on us again and keep your actions with that werewolf to a minimum Rosalie wont care if you decided to tap dance across the stage at your graduation. I personally was thinking Harvard for your college but then again…so long as it's this side of the continental US."
Lena looked down at her pasta then and Emmett became very interested in the bird sat on the hood of a rather attractive Mercedes which gave Lena enough time to wipe her eyes and replenish her mascara so that she could hide the show of emotion.
"Can I get some pie before we go home?" Lena said finally. "And a deer? Also I promised Embry I'd ring him"
Emmett grinned. Fatherhood it seemed came in many shapes and sizes and if a banoffee pie a dead deer and a phone call to a werewolf got his daughter back in her bed tonight then he didn't care.
Of course he had to get this past Rosalie but he thought that was the easiest part of the hard part they had gone through to get to where they were.
Of course this was Rosalie. She did loath being predicable.
"Course kid" he said reaching for his phone so that he could discreetly text Carlisle and let him know that by this time tomorrow there was a very good chance Esme would be building a new house for them.
"We can have pie"
Emmett was a simple man who had grown up in the 1930s. What the hell was 'Banoffee' anyway?
And there you are, let me know what you think and i will endevour to update sooner rather than later. See you all next time.
Next Chapter-Rosalie and Lena meet, Rosalie's story is told and a new understanding is reached.