A/N:
I do believe a whole lot of you will recognize the second half of this chapter!
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 25
FRIDAY, AUGUST 1st 2003 - TUESDAY, JANUARY 18th 2005
"It definitely needs a lot of work, but school doesn't start up for another month or so. I'm certain we can have it all done by then."
"At least, the foundation is solid and won't need replacing," Esme said as she inspected the three-story house we'd bought on the outskirts of a quaint little town called Forks in the northern parts of Washington.
When we drove into town, I'd been hit with a sudden sense of familiarity, even though I knew I'd never been in the town in my entire life, yet I couldn't shake it. Edward was the one who reminded me of why it was so familiar.
"Carlisle, wasn't it around these parts we encountered the wolves?"
"Wolves?" Jasper asked. "What wolves?"
"Last time we lived in Washington State, we encountered a small pack of werewolves who came from the local native tribe—the Quileutes," Carlisle explained, and Jasper gave him a wide-eyed, and somewhat terrified, stare.
"Werewolves? The real deal with the full moon and their immunity to our venom?"
I don't think I'd ever seen Jasper acting afraid for real.
Carlisle hurriedly reassured him. "No, not real werewolves in that sense. These actually look like wolves. I think shape-shifter is a more accurate name for them, but they see themselves as werewolves, even though they're not nearly as dangerous to us."
Jasper visibly relaxed while Alice looked deep in thought.
"Was this when you lived in Hoquiam?" she asked.
"Yes, why?"
"It's just strange I never had a vision of this encounter."
I shrugged, not overly concerned. "Maybe it wasn't a life and death situation, and it wouldn't have affected your future in any way. They were pretty tame."
"Yeah, maybe."
"We went into a treaty with them," Carlisle continued. "They were very civilized and cooperated well enough. The spot where we met is on the other side of town."
"So why are we here?" Jasper pushed. "If we have known enemies here, why did we move to Forks?"
"It was sixty-six years ago. I've never heard of immortal shape-shifters, and that means the wolves we met are most likely dead by now." Carlisle gestured toward the trees surrounding us. "The tribe used to take care of the entire forest around town, but now they only have a small reservation called La Push. As long as we stay away from there, I think we're as safe as we can be."
Jasper shook his head vehemently and visibly tightened his hold on Alice's hand. "That doesn't answer my question. Why did you choose this place?"
"The Northern Peninsula is one of the cloudiest and wettest places in America. If there's ever a place where I believe we can live a life as normal as possible, then it would be here."
Carlisle's words had the desired effect. Rosie instantly got on his side.
"Just let it go, Jasper," she said. "We've already bought the house and enrolled in the school. We can't just up and leave now. Besides, I'm with Carlisle. I'm sure the wolves are dead by now."
The sound of an engine turning onto the winding dirt road leading to our new house interrupted our discussion, and all of us instinctively turned to Edward and Alice to see if they knew who was coming.
"A man, but I don't know who," Edward said. "His thoughts are very obscured."
"The Chief of Police," Alice filled in. "His name is Charles Swan, and he's here to welcome us to the town. Apparently, our arrival gave quite a stir, and he feels it's his duty to check us out."
"I would have been surprised if our arrival hadn't alerted the police." Carlisle sighed and looked at our new cars parked on the lawn. They weren't exactly the type of vehicles that blended in, except for maybe the Volvo Edward bought as his "everyday car".
I also looked at our new toys, specifically my new Jeep, and grinned. I would have a lot of fun in that one. However, we didn't have a place to park them yet. We'd have to build a huge garage to fit them all as we'd splurged quite a lot this time.
The car that drove onto our driveway was a police cruiser, and the man who ducked out of it was tall, dark-haired, and in his early forties. He had a no-nonsense expression, and I could understand humans would have respect for someone like him.
"Can I help you with something, Officer?" Carlisle called to him in a loud tone and gave him a welcoming, closed-mouth smile.
Charles offered Carlisle his hand, and only the slightest twitch of his arm told me he was shocked by the difference in their temperatures. Otherwise, his face remained unchanged. "Dr. Cullen, I assume. I'm Chief Charlie Swan, and I just wanted to welcome you to our town and formally introduce myself."
"Pleased to meet you," Carlisle replied politely, and then held out his hand for Esme to come forward. "This is my wife, Esme."
She gave Charlie a warm smile, and I had to bite my lip from laughing when the smallest of flushes colored the chief's cheeks. However, my amusement quickly died down when I saw Jasper tense up from the corner of my eye.
Subtly, I shifted my weight so I was halfway standing in between the blushing human and my brother, who still struggled with his control at times. It wouldn't be in our best interest if something were to happen to the chief just hours after our arrival. If that didn't scream suspicious, I didn't know what did.
"And the others are our kids. Adopted, of course, but we still see them as our children," Carlisle continued as if nothing had happened, but he'd been aware of Jasper tensing up as much as the rest of us.
The chief gave us a nod, and we offered our own hellos back while trying to embrace the mannerisms of teenagers of this day.
"Well, I need to head back to the station, but as I said, I wanted to welcome you to Forks, and I hope you'll like our small town," he said and turned back to his cruiser.
Carlisle waved at him. "Absolutely. Thank you so much, Chief Swan. I'm sure we'll find Forks very pleasant."
{=DITM=}
I threw Jasper a stink-eye across the lunch table in the school cafeteria, but he wasn't looking at me. He was too preoccupied with concentrating on his control around all the pubescent teenagers we were surrounded by.
Naturally, I felt sympathy for him and what he had to endure all day, every day of school with all the hormonal emotions of teenagers and their inability to control their changing sweat glands, which enhanced their scents, but I was also miffed that he'd once again beaten me in last night's wrestling match. Somehow, despite all I did to control my emotions during a fight, he still upped me, and it annoyed me to no end.
I was tempted to challenge him to a rematch even before school had let out, but Rosie would have my head if I were the least bit responsible for our family having to move because of exposure or suspicion. She liked Forks as much as she could like any place, and even more so because there were less sunny days and, like Carlisle said, we could actually claim to be normal.
Of course, it had been impossible to escape the rumors, and it hadn't made it better that we made no effort in denying them since we didn't interact with the humans at all. The only ones who actually socialized outside of the family were Carlisle and Esme, and I believe that was what saved us.
As I continued to cast glances in my tense brother's direction, I noticed his fist clenching harder than before, and when Edward kicked the leg of his chair, I understood he'd let his imagination run a little bit too wild.
Jasper's ability made him even more in tune with the humans than the rest of us. If they were hungry or thirsty, it translated into him feeling more thirst himself, and that was why he had a harder time with our all-animal diet. It didn't help when he could also feel our thirst—none of us had hunted for about two weeks now—and Carlisle had told him repeatedly that he could stay at home if he wanted to, but his need to stay close to Alice, and also challenging himself, eliminated that option for him.
He claimed he could control his ability enough to shut off parts of it so he didn't have to feel the full effect of our, or the humans, emotions, but it was clear he was still struggling.
Edward exchanged a look with him, and Jasper looked down at the table in shame while muttering out an apology.
"You weren't going to do anything. I could see that," Alice murmured to him, but even I could hear the lie, and if I could, so could he. "It helps a little if you think of them as people," she continued and gave him the advice she'd given him before. "Her name is Whitney. She has a baby sister she adores. Her mother invited Esme to that garden party, do you remember?"
"I know who she is," Jasper replied briskly and turned away to stare out the windows. His tone ended the conversation.
Alice sighed silently, having heard the end of the conversation in his tone, and stood to throw away her untouched tray of food before heading to class. She could tell he wanted to be left alone. So did the rest of us, so I dropped the thought of a rematch for now, as I didn't want to continue poking that particular sleeping bear.
I tried to find something in the room to occupy my mind, but I was bored out of my mind. I turned to Rosie, but she was deep in her own thoughts.
"Jessica Stanley is giving the new Swan girl all the dirty laundry on the Cullen clan," Edward murmured to me, and I was thankful for the opportunity to shed some of my tediousness. I chuckled as I thought of what exaggerations Jessica Stanley, the town gossip and one of Edward's many rejects, could give the chief's recently returned daughter.
"I hope she's making it good."
"Rather unimaginative actually. Just the barest hint of scandal. Not an ounce of horror. I'm a little disappointed," Edward replied, just as well aware of Jessica's love of overstatements.
"And the new girl?" I asked with a smirk. "Is she disappointed in the gossip as well?"
Edward concentrated for a moment and knitted his brows together, but he never answered me. The energy around him appeared confused, and he even looked toward Jessica's table again.
It was almost time for class, though, and before I could ask my brother what was up, Rosie made us aware of the clock.
"Shall we?" Her focus was mostly on me and Jasper as the three of us were taking senior classes and, therefore, heading in the same direction while Edward and Alice posed as juniors.
Edward turned back to us, still befuddled over something, so I asked again. "So, is the new one afraid of us yet?" All I got in reply was a shrug, and I suddenly felt as confounded as he looked.
What riddled my brother's mind wasn't something I felt like putting too much energy into though, and it had already taken a backseat in my mind as Jasper, Rosie, and I headed in the opposite direction of him.
"Jazz, what do you say about a rematch at home after school?" I beckoned him with both hands to taunt him a bit. "C'mon!"
Jasper felt much better as soon as we walked outside into the fresh and rain-filled air. "Last night was your rematch. When are you going to accept that you can't beat me?"
"You have an unfair advantage," I reminded him. "So until I can surpass that, you'll have to deal."
He shook his head. "I'd rather not. Challenge Edward if you're itchin' for a fight."
"I would but he's been very boring lately, and he's got as much of an unfair advantage as you."
"Then go at Ros—"
"Don't even think about it," Rosie interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. "Keep me out of your games."
I put my arm around her and hugged her to my side for a moment and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry, babe. I'd rather do a different kind of wrestling with you."
Jasper opened the door to our building and held it open for us. "Just keep your lust to yourself for the rest of the day, okay? It's bad enough with all of these hormonal kids goin' around and droolin' over each other. I don't want to have to deal with the two of you as well."
The day was uneventful, as always, and when class ended, we all congregated in the parking lot by Edward's car, but he was, surprisingly enough, not there. He was almost always the first person out the door. The car was, however, unlocked, so we climbed inside and waited.
When he finally showed up, his expression was wild, and he was gasping, almost as if he'd been suffocated.
"Edward?" Alice asked, and there was alarm in her voice, so she had clearly not seen what had happened, and that worried all of us.
He shook his head with tightly clenched lips.
"What the hell happened to you?" I demanded. I wanted to know what had happened and whether my brother had been hurt or injured. It was the only thing I could come up with to explain his odd behavior.
Like in the cafeteria, he didn't answer me. He threw the car in reverse and sped out of the parking lot and onto the road toward home. Rosie, Jasper, and I turned to stare at Alice, hoping she could give us some answers, but she only shrugged before focusing on Edward and his future.
"You're leaving?" she whispered when she got something solid. We all turned to look at Edward instead.
"Am I?" he hissed, and the question made it clear he wasn't certain himself, but he was considering it.
Alice zoned out again. "Oh," she said, and then her features smoothed out completely and she repeated herself.
"Stop!" Edward groaned, having seen what she saw.
"Sorry," she whispered, her eyes wide. "I'll miss you," she said. "No matter how short a time you're gone."
Rosie and I exchanged an apprehensive glance. We had no idea what was going on, but it must have been something major for Edward to leave. We hadn't been around when he left Carlisle and Esme the first time, and his eyes were still as black as they had been earlier, so he hadn't slipped, but then, why was he leaving?
We were now close to home, and Alice told him to drop us off there. "You should tell Carlisle yourself."
He nodded and almost stood on the breaks to stop the car. The engine squealed, and Rosie flinched at the probable damage he'd caused it. We got out without asking the million questions we had, but Alice stayed another moment.
"You will do the right thing," she ordered him. "She's Charlie Swan's only family. It would kill him, too."
Her words cleared up some of the fog in my brain but not enough for me to really understand yet. It was about the new girl, Bella Swan, that much was obvious.
"Yes," he agreed, and Alice got out of the car as well. As we started for our house, Edward turned the car around toward the hospital.
I turned to Alice. "Could you be so kind and explain what the hell that was all about?"
She sighed, her eyes still full of anxiety for our brother. "The chief's daughter is Edward's singer."
A/N:
That was the last chapter folks! Only the epilogue left, and guess what … yes, I uploaded it directly after this one, so you can already go read it!
Saving my big sappy thanks for that one ;-)