A/N:

I almost forgot to give you this again! You're probably tired of hearing that, but Wednesdays has become the day of the week when I am just completely beat at the end of the day because I manage the store I'm working at completely alone for the entire day.

When I post Alice's story, it won't be on Wednesdays xD

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 21

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8th 1969

They listened for three days, and today, they sounded for retreat and headed home. The sponsors said it was going to be three days of peace and music. It was that all right and much more. Estimates of the crowd ranged up to more than 300,000 and it was that size that caused most of the trouble.

That and the rainstorms that turned the dairy meadow into a mud farm. The big problem was that no one, no one, had even the slightest notion that they would come in such numbers.

Today, weary but still light at heart, they huddled their masses and set out for home. And they headed in every direction.

As one official pointed out, with 300,000 people, you are not just dealing with a crowd but virtually a city. And as a city, it had city problems. One youngster died of a suspected overdose of heroin, eighty others were arrested on drug charges, another boy was killed when the driver of a tractor failed to see him inside a sleeping bag.

One of the promoters says he wouldn't try this again unless he could rent the Grand Canyon. He may have to. Already, there are threats of lawsuits from local business people who called it a disgrace. The kids said it was just great.

And so it's all over except for the massive clean-up job that remains. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair having done its thing quietly folds its tent and steals away. 'Til another day.

Richard O'Brien, CBS news, White Lake New York

I turned away from the TV with a grin. "I think it sounded like a cool event. Wish I'd been there."

"The unnecessary deaths of youths isn't a laughing matter, Emmett," Carlisle said without taking his eyes off the screen as he continued to listen to the rest of the broadcast.

"Yeah, because that was what I was talking about," I retorted, somewhat put out with his immediate berating of me. "I meant the music and the art."

Edward scoffed. "That's not music. That's just noise."

"Some prefer to evolve with the times, Ed." Jasper started to grin behind Edward's back, and it spurred me on. "There are other genres out there besides classical, you know."

"I don't just listen to classical," Edward defended himself heatedly. He was so sensitive when it came to music; it was downright ridiculous. "It's not my fault the people of today have no respect for the real art of composing."

I waved him away, unwittingly feeding into his ire. "Composing-schmosing. It's about the feelings in your heart, man," I said, quoting one of the youngsters interviewed in the broadcast and hitting myself with an open palm over the place where my heart used to beat. "It's all about the love." The guy's eyes had been heavy and his pronunciation had been slurry, so my guess was he'd either been drunk or high off his rails.

Edward rolled his eyes in annoyance and didn't comment. He knew I would turn whatever he said against him because that was what I did. He was easy to mess with, and while I joked around with everyone, he was the one who frequently got angry about it, so naturally, he became my go-to target.

Jasper was another matter altogether, and I often thought Edward needed to take a page out of his book if he wanted me to back off. Jasper's strategy meant he'd give back what he got, but it would often be ten times worse. And he had Alice on his side, so she could give him the intel on whether his jokes would work or if they'd backfire on him.

Personally, I saw that as cheating because I managed all of my jokes on my own as Rosie wasn't interested in participating, and I didn't nag her about it. I had tried to pull one on Alice once, but it didn't go well for me at all because, somehow, I ended up being the one covered in wet dirt and leaves smelling like ammonia.

As we were now gathered in the sitting room watching the broadcast, as we did at least once a week to keep up with what was happening out in the world and stay in tune with the times, a strange notion entered my head.

"Do you think it's possible for us to smoke that stuff and feel the effects?" I asked, and for a second, it got so quiet it was almost as if the TV was also holding its breath, and they were all staring at me. "What? I'm just curious."

Carlisle tried to hide a small smile and looked back at the TV as he answered. "I'm afraid it would do nothing to us, Emmett. The chemicals in drugs use the bloodstream to reach the brain, same with alcohol, and since we don't have that sort of flow in our bodies anymore, it's impossible."

"Thank heavens for that," Edward muttered. Obviously, the man was in a sour mood. "You're a pain normally. I don't even want to know what you'd be like with impaired senses."

"What crawled up your ass this morning?" I said and threw an eraser from the table at him even though I already knew he'd catch it.

"Emmett, please, don't use that sort of language," Esme chastened tiredly. She often had to tell me off when I said things she didn't like, but the truth was that I didn't understand why she took such offense to my use of the crude words. They got my point across.

Still, I always apologized to her because Esme deserved that respect. "Sorry, Esme, but seriously. Why are you in such a bad mood today, Ed? You're worse than usual."

"Because you're always such a bag of sunshine?" he threw back, and I sighed in despondence. He was too far gone to reason with.

"I don't want to handle this today." I stood up from my seat. "I'm heading into town for a few errands. Anyone want to come with me who isn't a Gloomy Gus?"

"I'll go with you!" Alice said enthusiastically. "I have a few things I need to fix myself."

Alice and I drove into town, mostly in silence, which should have been a clear sign to me that she had an ulterior motive for wanting to come along. Had she truly had the intention of running her own errands, she would have chatted my ear off about it the minute we got into the car.

"Don't be too angry with him. He can't always help it."

I'd been deep in my own thoughts, and it took me a second to understand she was talking about Edward. "I'm not allowed to be angry at the golden boy now? Why do we always have to be lenient with him?"

"Why do you think Carlisle, Jasper, and I give him the least amount of grief for how he is?" Alice asked me instead of answering my questions.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Carlisle's known him the longest, and you and Jasper have gifts like him, so I guess you 'understand' each other." I mockingly put emphasis on 'understand'.

"You're wrong."

"Yeah, apparently I'm wrong more often than not." I huffed and was a little bit surprised I was this upset about a little fall-out with Edward. I wasn't usually a person who held on to my anger for a long time unless I felt the target for my anger had warranted it—such as wronged someone who meant everything to me. I could take wrongdoings toward myself better than I could take the same act toward someone I cared for.

Edward had done no such thing. He'd only been the same sort of grim he was from time to time. Nothing new.

"Don't do that. You're not always wrong. Far from it. You have a different way of thinking than the rest of us, and there's nothing bad about that." I was impressed Alice was so very calm during this conversation. I knew she was capable of being serious, but most often, her excitement got the better of her, so at times when she was more solemn, it felt just a tiny bit unsettling. "I'm just saying, in this instance, when it comes to Edward, you are wrong. Carlisle, Jasper, and I give him allowance because we understand how he feels most of the time."

"And the rest of us don't?" I questioned.

"No, you don't," she replied without even a hint of hesitance. "You, Rose, and Esme have never been alone like he's been. At least, not for as long."

"Alone how?"

"Carlisle lived without Esme for more than two hundred years. Jasper thought he had Maria, but it never felt right until he and I met after eighty-five years, and I waited for him for twenty-eight. But you have always had Rose, and she was without you for a minimal amount of time. Esme felt a hint of the loneliness because she met Carlisle and was then separated from him, but she was still human. She's had him by her side her entire vampire life."

"You mean this is about him not having a mate?" It sounded rather incredulous to me. Lots of vampires didn't have mates. Most of them were nomads and traveled alone. Our coven was rather abnormal in that sense.

"Not exclusively," she said, clearly understanding why I couldn't fully agree with her. "Edward's melancholy was already a part of him before the change. Like Rose, he'd made his peace with death, and then it never happened. But he and Carlisle are kindred spirits, and the two of them could have continued together for centuries without feeling alone."

I was about to say that was my point, but Alice wasn't done.

"Then Esme joined and everything changed. With each addition to our family, Edward has gotten more and more alone. If there had been just one more in our coven who was unmated, I'm certain he would have been fine, but he's constantly surrounded by couples only," she explained. "It's bound to have an effect on him. Jasper says he often feels left out, especially at night. He'd never admit this, though, not even to himself."

"Fine then," I acquiesced. "But why are you telling me this? Ed and I have had our differences before, and nothing terrible has come out of it." I glanced at her sideways as I suspected this was more than just our newest sibling acting as a mediator. "Did you see something?"

She instantly nodded. "Yes. I saw you two in an explosive argument, and then I saw him wandering alone. Sometimes, they end with him hunting humans again."

Her words caused me confusion. "Why would he start hunting humans again because of a small, insignificant fight?"

"It's not just because of this one fight. It's everything that has built up over the years, culminating in him leaving because a part of him, according to Jasper, believes he's a burden to us."

I groaned. "Oh man, seriously? Why does he have to think like that?" At the end of the day, I saw Edward as my brother, and thus, we fought and got on each other's nerves. That was the dynamic of our relationship. I didn't like hearing that he felt so down he put everything on his own shoulders. That wasn't right. "Does this mean I have to stop yanking his chain?"

Alice let out a soft laugh. "No, not at all. In fact, I think you need to continue teasing him as often as you can because, when you do, it might annoy him, but it still makes him feel more included."

"I don't know," I said and took a deep breath as I pretended to think hard on it. "It seems like an impossible challenge." Complete lie, naturally. I had already concocted several tricks I could pull on him this very afternoon.

"Thank you, Em," Alice said and leaned her head on my shoulder, clearly already having seen the outcome.

"The things I do for this family," I said dramatically, as if her request had been a huge self-sacrifice. Then I went back to being at least a little bit more serious. "So was this the only reason you wanted to come with me today?"

A little smirk grazed the little imp's lips. "Not at all. I'm going to help you find a nice gift for Rose that'll get you out of the doghouse."

"I'm not in the doghouse," I told her, but I felt dread spreading through me.

"Not yet."

My stomach dropped at her implication. "What will I do to make her put me there?" Nothing was more unpleasant for me than when Rosie got mad because it made me feel like the worst husband in the world. It didn't matter that I knew she always, eventually, forgave me. In those moments, she could get me to grovel because if she thought I'd done something wrong, I'd be damned if I didn't do everything I could to make it up to her.

She laughed evilly. "Sorry, you'll have to figure that one out yourself."

"Oh, c'mon!" I actually whined. "That is not cool."

She shrugged, unswayed. "My lips are sealed." And they truly were. She didn't drop a single hint as she helped me pick out the gift she'd seen me give, and when we came back home, everyone got a laugh out of seeing me walk around the house as if on eggshells.

My previous argument with Edward was pretty much forgotten, and I started to wonder if that had been Alice's intention all along. Still, I kept the gift in my pocket. Just in the case.

A/N:

My beta, the lovely Alice's White Rabbit, and I had a little discussion about this chapter. Mainly about vampires ability to get high. Well, through medical research, I found it would most likely be impossible, but I still had to include the thought somehow, and what better way than for Emmett to ask if it would work? ;-)

I am running out of things to write in Emmett's story, and we are rapidly closing in on the point where Twilight takes place! If you have any suggestions or wishes of things you want Emmett to do in the 80s, 90s, or even the early 2000s before they move to Forks, go ahead and give me your worst because I welcome all ideas :-D

Until Next Week,

Stay Awesome!