Emma would never tell Emmett but he was secretly her favorite sibling. Alice was lovely, Jasper had a dry and sarcastic humor, she could appreciate and Rosalie…was Rosalie. She appreciated Emmett's eternal optimism. When she wanted to wallow in the futility of her existence, he would snap her out of it by making her laugh or want to strangle him.

But as much as she really wanted to punch him in the face, he fully understood and accepted her. She supposed any man who could fall in love with the she-demon that was Rosalie had to be either very brave or very stupid. And in Emmett's case, he was both. She did not however appreciate the suggestive wink he gave her when she drove away with Abel Weber in the backseat of her car.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do, sis, his thoughts called out, and have fun with your human!

She wanted to shout that Abel wasn't her human. He wasn't her anything. He was simply the guy she was playing matchmaker for because he had bad taste in women. And she could not live the rest of her already torturous existence knowing he ended up with someone like Lauren Mallory.

Abel directed her to his house on Bogachiel Way, a small one-story structure painted a faded light green with a detached shed. She parked the volvo and opened the car door for him. He refused her help getting out of the car, hopping on one leg as he made his way to the porch steps. He was slow but he got to the front door eventually, unlocking it and turning back to her with that friendly if not uncomfortable smile of his.

"We don't have to work on the report today," He told her. "I can write it and you can just text me whatever parts you want."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you always do this?"

He looked confused. "Do what?"

"Do all the work and let other people take the credit?"

"I…" He looked embarrassed, his face flushing a bright red. "I…I don't do that."

She listened to his internal denial. He reassured himself he didn't do what she suggested. Then memories came, the amount of times he let Mike or Tyler slack off and did all the work. The times he let his classmates make him do the brunt of the work and not complained because he didn't like conflict and it wasn't like he was doing much with his time anyway...

"I don't like being lazy," She interrupted his mental diatribe. "My father has always stressed on the importance of a good work ethic. Now how about you invite me in and we can get this over with?"

He moved to the side and she walked in without hesitation. The inside of the house was similar to the exterior, old but sturdy furniture, an old TV and photos of the family on picture frames. She inwardly snorted at the big heavy cross on the wall, remembering that Abel's father was a Lutheran Minister. The ancient piano at the corner made her smile and she made a beeline towards it.

It was made of dark oak and she traced the Sauter logo, remembering a similar piano her mother taught her how to play on. When she had left school at fifteen, she spent most of her days practicing piano until her fingers went numb. It was better than being forced to go to parties and being pushed towards men who only wanted to talk about themselves. And being ignored by her father who would retreat to his study with his friends and smoke cigars and drink and-

"Do you play?" Abel asked. "You could play on Old Bess. She wouldn't mind."

"Bess?"

"That's what we named her," He smiled and she saw a memory of a woman with dark hair and who she could only assume was Abel's mother teaching him how to play Do Re Mi on the piano. "She's old but she's hanging in there. Good old Bess."

She found herself smiling despite herself and Abel was staring at her, almost in awe. She had to turn away from his brown eyes lest she say something she did not want to. He excused himself to go change and she sat on the stool and began to play Esme's favorite Nocturne piece. The piano needed some tuning but she didn't mind it, if she closed her eyes she could be back home and playing on her grand piano as she did every night.

If she tried enough, she might be back in Chicago at her family's old townhouse. Her mother would be writing letters in her room, her father at his office, and her fat Beagle, Milo, would be sleeping on the rug nearby. Hours would pass by before her mother would come down and tell her to get ready for dinner. Her father would come home and they would quietly have dinner together and Milo would beg for scraps by her feet…

"You play beautifully," She turned to see Abel had returned and was sitting on the coach again. "My mother would say you're talented."

"It's just plenty of practice," Decades of it. "Don't you play?"

"I used to and then I got busy with school…" Abel trailed off and reached for his back pack, pulling out his textbook. "We should start on that report. I don't wanna keep you here all night."

She stood up and took a seat on the armchair across from him. He'd apparently gone to the library and found information on the topic. He even made his way to the public library and researched online for newspaper articles and photos. She stared down at newspaper clippings and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.

Spanish Influenza Makes Appearance

Wear A Mask And Save Your Life

Influenze Cases in Quarantine Here

Spanish "Flu" Spreads All Over Europe

"Flu" Epidemic Ravages Fast

Influenza Epidemic Closes Schools, Churches, Theatres

6,000,000 Deaths From Influenza

"Emma!"

She blinked at the sight of Abel Weber kneeling in front of her, careful not to put weight on his bad knee. His brown eyes were wide in concern and she shook her head trying to push away thoughts of crowded hospitals and her mother…

"Are you okay?" Abel grasped her hand gently. "Emma, tell me what's wrong."

"I can't," She closed her eyes and pushed away the past with all her might. She had done such a good job of burying all the painful parts away and she didn't know why they were coming back now. "It's too terrible."

"What is?" Abel asked softly, his thumb running a circle gently over her knuckles. "Maybe talking about it can help."

She shook her head, vehemently. "No. I'm fine."

"You're clearly not fine," He sighed. "Do you want me to call your siblings? If you don't want talk to me, I understand. Let me get somebody who can help."

It was his kindness, his unfailing decency that undid her. She had grown up around men who only cared about what their wants and needs. She was meant to be property, an extension of a man's vanity. No man, even her father, had cared for what she wanted until she died.

And here was Abel Weber, who despite not even being her friend, wanted to help her. It made her wonder if he had been born earlier if-

She pushed those thoughts away, not trusting them. The past seemed even more palatable then where her mind had been leading her.

"My mother – my birth mother – died when I was very young," She admitted. "It was the flu. My father got sick first. We hoped it was just a cold. Then my mother got sick too and we were all in the hospital. And then my mother she…she was gone."

And she'd been alone. When Carlisle had first turned her, she wanted nothing to do with him. She locked herself away, trying to block out all the voices she heard. Her hearing and ability made it hard to decipher which was internal and external. With little to no control, all she knew was that she was going to go mad if she did not keep her distance from everyone.

"I'm sorry," Abel whispered, afraid anything louder would break her. "I'm sorry you had to lose your parents."

She opened her eyes, wiping at her tears with her free hand. Abel was still holding hers and she didn't want him to let go.

"I love my adopted parents. Carlisle and Esme have always treated me like their own but I was close to my birth mother. She taught me everything – how to read, write, sew, play piano," She sniffed, trying to stop tears that kept coming. "I didn't want this life. And she would've hated me."

Abel stared at her in horror. "No! Don't think that. She would've loved you."

"Why?"

"Because that's what moms do," He insisted. "They love you and take care of you no matter who you are or what you do."

"Even if…"

She had killed. Murderers, rapists, and criminals of the same ilk. Rosalie had hunted with her and she had felt camaraderie with her sister in wanting to punish those who only caused other people pain. Rosalie had been so angry after she had turned and had recognized a similar wrath in her.

And if Emmett hadn't been turned, it would still be the two of them, hunting and discarding men of black hearts. Even as they felt the guilt and the self-loathing growing within themselves. They were justified. They had to be.

"Even if you don't think you deserve it," Abel assured her. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. "How about we finish this some other day? I think we've covered enough for now."

She wanted to protest and pushed for them to get the work done but she was too exhausted to care. The sight of the newspaper articles made her sick and she agreed with Abel as she wiped at her wet face. He wordlessly put away his research and she readied herself to leave. He wanted to see her out but she declined, citing he needed to rest his knee.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" He asked, worriedly. "I could call your family to pick you up."

"No, no," She wrapped her arms around herself. "I should be okay."

Nodding, he hesitated before offering. "If you ever need somebody to talk to…"

"I'll come find you," She smiled softly and glanced at the wooden cross on the wall. "Thank you for your concern, Abel."

"Anytime."

She turned away and left the house without looking back. In the safety of her car, she refused to look for his silhouette by the window as she drove away. She wondered as she made her way home why she opened up to Abel Weber. She hadn't planned on it and it was unnecessary. She just couldn't get herself to regret it.

Emma tried to hide that she was watching the doorway, waiting for Abel to appear. He finally limped into the classroom before the bell rang and she watched the back of his head as Mr. Monroe began the lesson. He handed out books to everyone and she frowned at the cover. Carmilla.

She glared at Mr. Munroe as he began his explanation, wanting to throw her copy at his face and decapitate him. Why they've gone from Shakespeare to gothic vampire literature she had no clue. She would think this was a grand joke if she wasn't so annoyed. She sunk into her sweet and rubbed at her temples.

She was startled as a crumpled paper ball fell to her desk. She blinked and unfolded it. You okay? She recognized Abel's cramped handwriting.

She looked up and he mouthed, "Okay?"

She sighed and mouthed back, "Okay."

He smiled and went back to paying attention to the lesson, dutifully taking notes. He was so nice and thoughtful. She hadn't said a word to him in three years, treated him like air, and here he was worried about her. He comforted her as she broke down last night and treated it like it was nothing.

Who was this boy? She narrowed her eyes at him and threw back the paper ball and it hit him between his shoulder blades. He stiffened and turned around, looking a little annoyed. He mouthed, "What?"

She shrugged and tried to ignore him, pretending to listen to Munroe drone on about vampires. Abel turned back around and filtered out his confused thoughts on her behavior. Let him be confused.

"The vampire's a very lonely figure," The teacher recited. "She wants a companion forever…"

She rolled her eyes and tried to pretend she didn't continue to sneak glances at the back of Abel Weber's head.

"You find it in almost all cultures but there are three things you find in almost every vampire story," Mr. Munroe continued. "Sex, blood, and death…"

Emma walked as slow as she could in the hallway with Abel limping a few feet in front of her. She always took for granted how she couldn't get hurt easily. Humans, on the other hand, were fragile. Little paper dolls that could tear so easily in her hands. Their bones were so brittle like glass…

"Sis," Emmett wrapped a heavy arm around her shoulders. "Watching out for your human?"

She muttered, "He's not mine."

"Not yet."

She resented his knowing smile. "Not ever."

"Do you want to make a bet?" Emmett leaned into her more and she was forced to lean back to accommodate his weight. He was as big as a damn bear. "You end up with the pastor's kid, I get your Volvo."

"You don't even like my car," She pointed out. Emmett liked big cars and nothing less. Probably cause he didn't have to worry about fitting in them. "And I'm not making a bet with you. You cheat."

"Sounds like you're scared, Em."

"I am not!" She hissed. "And just to prove you wrong, fine. If I win, I get your truck."

And she was going to drive it into the ocean where it would stay forever. Emmett could always get another truck but it was the principal of the thing.

"You got yourself a deal," He pulled back and offered her his hand. They shook on it and he looked disturbingly pleased. "And since you didn't set a time limit, you got about seventy years or so before he dies."

She growled. Emmett always cheated or found some loophole. Growing up an only child hadn't prepared her for the eternity of dealing with siblings who would bribe, hoodwink, and intimidate her into losing. Tough luck for him as she was not backing down.

"What's seventy years?" She countered. "That's a heartbeat for us."

"Ah, yes, hearts," He chuckled. "And how yours would be aflutter if it could still beat."

Having enough of his nonsense, she left him. "You can walk home today."

"I love you too, sis!"

She had to push her matchmaking efforts more now that she had her Volvo and pride on the line. It was in one of those moments she wished she had her mother and she could ask her about what boys liked. Only for her to remember that her mother, as much as she loved her, would tell her to be amiable and sweet and agree to everything he said. Her only choices to ask were Esme or Alice.

She decided on Alice. As talking about any boy with Esme, fictional or not, would only end with her adoptive mother's delusional hope that she would finally find love and be in couple's bliss like the rest of her family. Carlisle and her brothers had gone hunting which was the perfect time for her to have a chat with her sister. She found Alice in her bedroom, sketching out another dress in one of her numerous notebooks.

"Hello Alice," She greeted. "Are you busy?"

Alice didn't look up as she continued her drawing. "Is it time for the sex talk already?"

She stopped. "What?"

Her sister finally looked up and gave her one of her dreamy smiles that she used when she wasn't quite sure what timeline she was in. It took Alice a moment before she finally said. "Is this about Jessica and the futile matchmaking?"

"Um…"

She had never said a word to anyone about what she was doing. And she hadn't thought of consulting Alice about this before because she didn't think Alice was paying attention to the future of a bunch of human adolescents.

"Is it gonna work?" She might as well ask. "Abel and Jessica?"

"He likes somebody else," Alice frowned. "Or will like."

"Yes. He likes Lauren. That's what I'm trying to get him to stop doing."

"Right. Her."

Alice hummed and she went back to her drawing. Emma took a seat on the bed beside her sister and asked, "Does he like somebody besides Lauren?"

"He will but not yet," Her pencil made that scrapping noise on paper that always mildly irked Emma. "There are still decisions to be made."

The future could be so cryptic for having a direct tap into the pool of the great beyond. Sometimes, Alice would tell them things out of order or were said in a way that was too vague for them to understand until later. It could be frustrating. And Emma had stopped asking about her future years ago lest she obsess with wondering what Alice was trying to tell her.

"Who will Abel like then?"

Alice gave her another dreamy smile. "You, of course."

She couldn't react to that as Emmett's booming voice yelled out from outside. "Ha! I'm getting a Volvo!"

She left the bed, opened and window, and stuck her head out, trying to find Emmett's hulking form through the trees. "You are not!"

She was going to drive him and his truck into the ocean. And she was not going to miss him. He could rot there on the sea floor. Forever.

1. When I began writing this story, I did not intend it to be so topical but here we are. The newspaper headlines are from actual newspaper scans from 1918 I saw on Google. I was not able to explore Edward's past as much in Equinox so I'm rectifying that now. Emma is more contemplative than her male counterpart and not immune to crushes and being clueless on how to deal with them

(When I was 13, I was really mean to this boy I liked cause it was the only way he would notice me. And guess what? He hated me but he never forgot me. Fuck you, Brian.)

2. Emma was born in the Progressive Era. The Women's Suffrage Movement was still underway in America and women were still very repressed. Women were still being taught to hide their emotions and stayed in very unhappy marriages. Emma, being white from a well-off family in Chicago, would've left school after the eight grade. As she no financial reason to, she didn't have to get a job before she found somebody to marry. Marriage was still priority for women at the time. They were also dealing with the start of World War I in 1914 and eventually the Spanish Flu in 1918.

3. The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from spring 1918 through spring or early summer 1919, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world's population at the time. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

4. Edward, canonically, in the books from 1927 to 1931 subsidized on human blood and hunted criminals. For this story, Emma stayed on the human diet a few years longer and had a hunting partner in Rosalie. In the books, Rosalie has never had human blood but in this story, she had somebody that shared her hatred of her existence and men.

5. Canonically, Alice was Edward's favorite sibling. In this story, Emma's favorite sibling is Emmett because he is the best. I tweaked Alice's personality to be a bit more 'dotty' on purpose. As somebody that can nearly constantly see the future, she would get her timelines messed up in her head. And considering how her ability hinges on people's decisions, she can't really give concrete assurance of what the future is. She still likes fashion design in this story, just like in Equinox.

6. Edward never had a dog named Milo. I added him in there cause I love dogs myself. And I really want to have a beagle someday.

7. Having them read Carmilla in class made me laugh cause I'm mean like that. Carmilla is a gothic novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu which is about a female vampire. It predates and inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.

8. "The vampire's a very lonely figure. She wants a companion forever. You find it in almost all cultures but there are three things you find in almost every vampire story - sex, blood, and death" is from film The Moth Diaries. And they were discussing Carmilla in class.

9. The song Emma played on the piano is Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1.