A/N:
I very nearly forgot to update this story! Man, having this new job has caused me to carry my head under my arm, and I forget things constantly :-P
Title: Origins: Destiny in the Mountains
Author: MarieCarro
Beta: Alice's White Rabbit
Pre-reader: BitterHarpy
Genre: Family/Supernatural
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Emmett Brian McCarty never had much in life, but growing up poor didn't stop him from enjoying life and all its pleasures.
However, always seeking thrills most often means it will end badly, and one day, while hunting for game in the mountains, Emmett meets his destiny. Canon. ExR
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER 19
THURSDAY, MARCH 16th – SUNDAY, AUGUST 20th 1950
"You don't remember anything? Anything at all?"
"No."
"How is that possible?" I turned to Carlisle, as he was the most well educated man I knew. "Is that possible?"
"I've never heard of it happening before, but I don't see how it could be impossible," he said with apologetic eyes directed toward Alice. "Humans can experience temporary, or even permanent, amnesia after traumatic events or accidents. In Alice's case, however, the traumatic event must have happened parallel with the change."
"How so?" Edward inquired with intrigue. He was as stumped by this as I was. "Couldn't it have been the change in itself? It is more traumatic than any human accident can possibly be."
Carlisle nodded. "While that is true, had it been the change, the venom would have healed any damage it caused, and Alice would have remembered what led up to her being bitten. Take Esme for example"—he tightened the arm around her shoulders—"while she couldn't recall climbing up to the cliff at the time, her other senses were aware of it, and therefore, she can still see the memory if she decides to."
Esme nodded to confirm his words before directing her eyes elsewhere. We rarely spoke of Esme's suicide attempt, which was the direct cause of her becoming a vampire. Naturally, all of us knew about it, but we knew it still hurt her to think of it, and so, we simply avoided bringing it up.
Now, however, her posture suddenly relaxed, and a small smile stretched across her face. She turned to look at Jasper. "Thank you," she said, and I understood he'd used his emotion mojo on her to help her with her pain.
I liked Jasper more and more with every passing hour.
"My only theory would be that the origin of Alice's memory loss occurred before the change, and the venom healed the physical injury that caused the amnesia to begin with. But the lost memories were already gone and could therefore not be restored," Carlisle finished, and his expression was frustrated. Carlisle wasn't the type of person to showcase any aggressive emotions unless he was seriously provoked, and I believe his frustration stemmed from not knowing something about what he thought was basic vampire anatomy.
"Don't feel guilty, Carlisle," Jasper spoke up in his low, and strangely soothing, tones. "I'm not nearly as old as you, but I've crossed my fair share of vampires in my lifetime. While I didn't make a habit of conversin' with them before tearin' them apart, I believe I knew enough about them to say with certainty that this phenomenon isn't particularly common. I was as confused as you are now when Alice told me."
When Jasper had finally told me his story, I had been awestruck by it. I'd already been aware of the wars in the south since Carlisle had told me about them, but sitting next to Jasper, knowing he'd lived through them and survived, put all of that in a new perspective for me.
Just like my parents and brothers had told me about the first World War and how it had affected them when they thought Dad would be drafted, it had all felt distant to me by the time I was old enough to understand. It didn't directly affect me then.
This was similar to that. Carlisle had told me about the Southern Wars, but Jasper was the tangible proof of them. Or, his scars were. Hundreds upon hundreds of them inflicted by newborns who had tried, and failed, to kill him.
It also fascinated me that before he'd left his creator behind and moved up north, he had essentially been unaware of the world outside. He'd had no idea one, let alone two, world wars had raged in Europe, or the evolution of industries and technology.
He'd naturally seen horses and carriages being replaced by motor vehicles whenever he hunted in a city, but beyond that, he'd been completely cut off from civilization.
"And since I don't remember it, I can't really miss it," Alice insisted reassuringly. "I'm fine with it. I promise."
{=DITM=}
"Do you think it's the Russians doing?" I asked Jasper as we placed all of our suitcases in the trunks of our three, newly purchased cars that would take us to our next hometown of Calgary, Alberta. We had to dodge the draft for the Korean War, which they'd started to send young men to, and a unanimous decision in the family had made us decide not to try our luck by staying in Philadelphia.
Carlisle was the only one of us who would ever feel okay on a battlefield with a thick scent of fresh blood in the air.
"Tell me if I've understood this correctly," Jasper said and turned to me. "In 1917, the Russian Tsar was overthrown and replaced by a government, but because of differin' opinions, it resulted in a civil war, which the Red Army won, and in 1922, they became the Soviet Union. That nation now has an ideology called communism, which removes all social classes and pretty much makes it impossible to have success above the average citizen. The fear now is that they want to spread this ideology throughout the world, startin' with Korea."
I gaped at Jasper. Even with perfect memory, I was impressed he'd made the effort to learn about all of that stuff. I knew about it because it had been talked about in school, but had it not been an academic assignment, I would never have even attempted to teach myself any of it. It simply didn't hold any interest to me.
"Did I miss somethin'?"
"No." I shook my head. "I actually think you taught me a few things." Both of us chuckled lightly. "Why did you learn it all?"
"The makin' of wars has always interested me—the how's and why's. Each side always has a reason logical enough to gain followers, no matter whether it's the winnin' or the losin' side. Before I form my opinion, I prefer havin' all the facts. It's the most strategic way you can go about things," he explained calmly. "Before I was created, Russia was still an empire with a tsar. In order for me to understand this war and why people fear Russia's involvement, I had to look into its history."
I nodded to myself. "Yeah, makes sense, I guess."
The rest of the family came outside with their own suitcases, and we filed into the cars; Edward took the wheel of the one Alice and Jasper were in as neither of them had driven a car before while the rest of us paired up with our partners.
Since we would take a route cross-country, the journey to Calgary would normally have taken almost thirty-five hours, but Rosie had naturally tweaked the engines of our vehicles to allow us to travel much faster. Edward's car took the lead so that he and Alice would be able to know beforehand if any traffic officers would be in our way, and they could signal us.
With the new engine speed, we'd reach Alberta in a little more than half the time.
As our relocation to Canada was solely because of the military draft, Esme had opted out of buying property this time. Instead, she found a ranch house for rent with an accompanying nine acres of land surrounding it with a lot of it being forest; a small win for us. It meant more isolation and less questions being asked about our rather large family.
It would be interesting to see how many more stares and rumors we'd have to endure now with two more additions. Five months with Alice and Jasper hadn't told us much, except that Alice had said she knew everything would work out perfectly in the end.
All we could do was trust her at this point because if we didn't, she gave us the most heart-wrenching look of all times. "You think I'm lying or making it up?" she'd ask in a gutted voice, and the rest of us would feel so guilty as if we'd committed the most unthinkable crime against her.
We'd learned that Alice was very sensitive when it came to her visions, but for what reason not even she could answer. All she could tell us was that whenever we doubted her, something inside her clenched so painfully she couldn't even describe it.
Jasper had explained it would have been akin to being punched really hard in the stomach as a human, and you lost your breath for, what felt like, a never-ending moment.
After he said that, we'd all agreed that unless the vision Alice had was directly linked to an easily changed decision—we'd learned that her visions were subjective to the choices people made and that such futures could always change—we'd always trust her word. It was better than to cause her pain.
Alice had, already in the short amount of time I'd known her, become a little sister to me. She could easily be as annoying as one when she wanted to be, yet I could no longer see our family without her and Jasper in it. They naturally fit with us.
It also became clear in the time they'd been with us that Alice had very good control over her thirst while Jasper struggled more. Not that any one of us would have expected anything else. He'd only practiced the lifestyle for two years after more than half a century of human blood. It would have been a miracle if he didn't have a hard time adjusting.
He'd explained to us that he thought it came down to changing his view of the humans. For the longest time, he'd seen them as no more than cattle, a quota of blood divided equally between the vampires controlling that area. That was what his creator had drilled into him.
The fact that he could feel their emotions had naturally caused him to have more sympathy for them than the others, but it merely resulted in him killing them faster in more merciful ways. He still saw them as food.
With Alice's help, he was slowly building on his sympathy for the humans as she told him of the futures she saw them having, and the people who would grieve for them if they went missing or turned up dead. It helped some, but not always.
As we had expected, we reached our new house in Calgary in the early morning hours, just before sunrise, and we immediately worked on settling in. The house, like our previous ones, was grand and had more bedrooms than we'd use, but we weren't planning on staying in Canada for long, so it didn't really matter. As long as all of us had our own little nook we could escape into when we needed to be by ourselves or with our mates, then it was enough for us.
"I had an idea earlier," Carlisle announced as we all helped to unpack his numerous books. "We never really had a good explanation about Jasper and Alice joining us. I told a few colleagues that Alice was Edward and Emmett's second cousin, and Jasper was her fiancé, but they weren't fully convinced." He looked between Rosie and Jasper. "You two resemble each other enough to pass for fraternal twins. If Jasper would agree to change his last name to Hale, it would be even better."
A small twitch of Rosie's lips told me she was grateful he hadn't suggested she changed her last name. She was still sensitive when it came to her last human connection. She only accepted to change it to take my name, but that was it.
"I don't mind," Jasper replied with a shrug. "I left my own name behind decades ago anyway. I think I could get used to being Jasper Hale."
Alice gasped in the corner, and we all looked at her in question. She was locked in a vision, but from her growing smile, I assumed it wasn't anything bad she was seeing. Edward also started smiling, and then Jasper couldn't hold back his own.
"Whatever could you possibly be seeing to cause such happiness, darlin'?" he asked her and rose to his feet. He walked over to her, almost as if he were being subconsciously pulled toward the joyful feelings.
She shifted her eyes to his as her vision left her, and I almost felt as excited as Jasper to hear what she'd seen. I wanted to know what could cause three people to start smiling like fools in less than a second.
"I want to tell you, but I don't want to ruin it," she said, but then it was as if she simply couldn't hold it in. "I want you to know that when you decide to do it, I'll still act surprised if that's what you want."
Jasper gently cradled her face in his hands. "What are you talking about?"
I looked over at Edward to get a hint, and he subtly tapped his left ring finger. My own grin took over, as I understood Alice had seen her and Jasper tie the knot.
Until that moment, I hadn't really thought of the status of their relationship. A part of me had assumed they had already married, maybe in a city hall somewhere before they found us as they had been together for two years at that point. They certainly already lived like a married couple.
Not that I was anyone to talk about practicing abstinence before marriage. The Lord knew Rosie and I had broken that rule long before I proposed.
"I ..." she started, then took a deep breath and began again. "I saw us getting married in the back yard."
Jasper smiled again, clearly not annoyed she knew before him. "Did you see when it would happen?"
Alice let out a happy little giggle and shook her head. "Only that it must have been summer or spring." She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, but even in her heels, she had to really stretch. The height difference between the two of them was almost comical but also sweet.
Suddenly, Jasper produced a box from his trouser pocket. "How about next summer?"
I believe that was the first time I ever saw Alice being genuinely surprised. It was clear she hadn't at all expected Jasper to already have a ring, and even before she opened the box to look at it, she jumped up into his arm and kissed him with fervor and a loud "Yes!" falling from her lips.
While none of us were strangers to showing affection around other people, all of us still felt mildly uncomfortable imposing on their private moment. Unlike Rosie and me, they weren't overly physical with each other, so at times when they were, it felt a hundred times more intimate.
To disperse the ever-growing tension in the room, I clapped my hands together enthusiastically. "Sounds like we've got us a weddin' to plan!" I exclaimed, allowing my previous Tennessee accent to become unnecessarily heavy.
The others let out relieved laughter at my antics, and I mentally gave myself another score for having saved a potentially awkward situation.
A/N:
I won't include Jasper and Alice's wedding in this story. I'll save that for their stories ;-)
Sooo, what did you think? I agonized over this chapter so much (my beta can attest to that) because I was experiencing a huge writer's block because I wanted to include a summary of the Korean War, and that topic wasn't ever covered in my history class in Sweden xD
Anyway … until next week,
Stay Awesome!