To be honest, it had started months ago, around the time the wedding planning had begun. What with her third prêt-a-porter fashion line ready to premier, Alice was far too busy jaunting to Paris every other weekend to put much effort into the preparation of Nessie and Jacob's ceremony. With Alice's help out of the question, Rosalie had stepped up to the helm, planning for the girl as if she had been her own daughter – a feeling Rosalie had always secretly harbored. After all, hadn't she been the one to care for the girl when Bella had been going through the change? Hadn't she stepped up to be a surrogate mother of sorts? Yes, she had, and so she planned the wedding with as much detail and focus as she had given to her own first nuptials so long ago.

Unfortunately, that also meant ignoring the other aspects of life normal people – even normal vampires – would deem necessary. Her immaculate wardrobe began falling behind the times. Edward had no one to bicker with. The cars sat, waiting and still, under their protective covers. And even Emmett began feeling neglected – especially when their fourteen-sessions-a-week routine was cut down to just eight. Then four. Then none at all for two whole weeks. Truly, it almost made sense that he began stockpiling those magazines.

Of course, Rosalie didn't see it as such. Thus the arguments began, little and picky at first before growing into full-fledged battles – like the one that Saturday, that ordinary, normal Saturday.

Emmett was in the bathroom styling his hair when his wife entered, her irritation an almost tangible thing in the room. He wondered for a moment if it was Edward's teasing again or if – but then he remembered. He had left a magazine on the bed for her to find, one of the good ones filled with girls almost as pretty as she was (cause even when he was so frickin' irritated with her, he still had to admit she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen). He heard Rosalie scoff and snickered at himself, knowing his plan to piss her off even more was working.

It was almost like a game now – see how mad you could get the other one before they exploded or caved in. Of course, the latter had yet to happen, but Emmett prayed it would be soon. As hot as Rosalie was when she was mad, she was ten times hotter underneath him doing those sinful things with her hips….

"Is this supposed to make me feel insecure?"

Rosalie's once-alluring voice now could be as cold and spine-chilling as when she taunted Edward, and it definitely cleared his head of those more-than-indecent thoughts. Making sure his mop of curls was perfectly gelled – he had learned something after all those years being married to her – he stepped from the bathroom and leaned against the jamb, his massive bulk filling the doorframe.

"Nope," he said with a wicked grin, "it's supposed to make me feel good."

Rosalie sneered, mauling her angelic face. "You're a pervert, Emmett Cullen. Esme would be ashamed if she knew."

Emmett scolded fit to match. "Leave Esme out of this. This is between you and me."

"You and me?" She arched one perfect golden eyebrow. "There hasn't been a 'you and me' for quite some time, Emmett dear."

"Oh, and whose fault is that, darling?"

"Are you blaming me for your nasty fetishes?"

Emmett felt his blood start to boil. As he scowled at her, he could almost feel his eyes turning to black. "Well, it sure would seem that if I was getting it elsewhere, I wouldn't have to take care of it myself, now, would I?"

Rosalie sighed, looking at her nails in a cavalier way. "Go ahead and get it elsewhere, Emmett. Better that than these dirty magazines."

"So you're giving me permission to cheat on you?" Emmett was more than a little astounded. Rosalie had said some pretty out-there things in the past, but never anything like that.

She murmured her assent. "Mmmhmm. At least then I'd have cause to leave you."

"Leave me?" he repeated, trying to hide the sudden wave of sickness in his gut with sarcasm. "As if you'd ever do that. You know you can't live without this." He grinned as he flexed, knowing she'd be a fool to pass him up.

But she looked at him and scoffed. "Is that supposed to make me swoon or something? You think I'm going to forgive all this –" she pointed at the magazines "– just because you pop out a few muscles?"

"You never could resist them before."

"You never were such a depraved idiot before."

Emmett let out an almost inaudible growl. "Well, excuse me for trying to get by while my wife ignores me for six months straight."

"You know that the wedding was something I had to –"

"You didn't have to do anything, Bella could've hired a planner –"

"It was Renesmee, our niece, would you really want some stranger –"

"Hell yes, I'd rather have a stranger doing that shit instead of you, fussing about nothing but ridiculous flowers and place settings and –"

"It's not ridiculous! It was important to her and important to me! You know Nessie and I wanted everything to be perfect, and I wasn't about to let her –"

"God damn it, Rose, she's not your daughter!" Emmett finally exploded. "She's Bella's! Get the fuck over it and move on!"

The room was still, more still than it had ever been in the silence that followed their verbal explosion.

Then came the near-alien scream from Rosalie's lips. Emmett winced at the sound – all at once angry and painful and final, like a horrible deathcry from some wounded beast. Only Rosalie wasn't wounded at all; she still had the strength it took to grab the bed they had once happily shared and throw it across the room. Emmett stared in shock as the four-poster oaken bed moved, nearly in slow motion, through the floor-to-ceiling windows that took over the entire south wall. The sound of shattering glass filled his ears, followed by the horrible splintering crash of the bed landing on the ground, followed by five words that settled in his soul like droplets of water in a lake, like fledglings alighting on a nest, like a tornado ripping through the forest.

"I. Want. A goddamn. Divorce."

It was almost as if he had been socked in the gut hard enough to have the wind knocked out of him, something that hadn't happened for over eighty years. No. No. This was in no way what he wanted to happen. But…he couldn't start begging. Not right away, at least. With Rosalie, it was all about the game. Yeah, the game. That was it. It was probably just a game with her, a test to see how badly he wanted her to stay. And the hell if Emmett McCarty Cullen, continual champion, was going to give in so easily. Let her have her fun. He'd make her come around just by refusing to give in.

"Fine," he scoffed, his voice lofty and high as if he couldn't care less.

Rosalie's brilliant topaz eyes widened in surprise for a moment before narrowing coldly. "Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

She gave another piercing shriek as she turned sharp on her heel, leaving the room in a blur almost as fast as Edward. Barely ten seconds passed before he heard the roar of an engine followed by the screeching of tires – a sure sign that she was way beyond angry, if she was putting one of her babies through such paces.

That screech seemed to clear Emmett's head and allow other noises to infiltrate: his barely-there breathing, the glass and wood still cracking and falling down the ground below, the worried murmurs of his other family members, and Esme's cry from outside the hole where his bedroom windows had once been.

"Emmett? Emmett! Are you alright?"

He stepped over to the gaping space in the wall, leaning over to see Esme and Alice standing amidst the ruins of his marital bed. His sister's face was as calm as ever, as if she had seen this before it had happened – and of course she had. His mother, on the other hand, had eyes filled with worry, her mouth drawn up tight. Emmett put a hand on the broken wall for balance before jumping through the hole to the grassy backyard, a few feet from where the wreckage and his family were.

"I'm fine, Esme," he said, trying to sound jovial, stuffing his hands in his pockets and shrugging his shoulders, like beds flying out of windows were everyday occurrences.

But Carlisle didn't have the worried look of his wife or the calm placid look of his daughter. He was almost bordering on livid as he burst from the backdoor and asked, "What on earth is going on here?"

Emmett shrugged again, feeling more than slightly ashamed as he kicked at a broken bedpost with his toe.

"Emmett and Rose were fighting," Alice said matter-of-factly, then added in a softer tone, "Rose wants a divorce."

"A divorce?" Esme repeated.

Emmett bit the inside of his cheek, hard. Playing along with Rosalie's little game was all well and good (provided she gave in soon), but having to deal with his family's pity was almost more than he could bear. Emmett Cullen was not one to be pitied.

"Surely it's all just a misunderstanding," Esme said hopefully, glancing from him to his sister and back again.

He only caught a glimpse of Alice out of the corner of his eye, but he could still see her shaking her head sorrowfully.

"Whatever," Emmett mumbled, still as breezy as possible – which probably wasn't breezy enough. "Rosealie's probably just being her drama-queen self. She'll come around."

"Yes," Esme said, her voice sounding forced, "she'll come around. She has to." The gentle squeeze she gave his shoulder was reassuring, and he thought for a moment that maybe he could ask Esme to pull some strings and talk to her and…

But that would be giving in, just as much as crawling back to her would. And this was the last time Emmett was going to give into Rosalie's stupid dramatic fits. She would be the one crawling back now. And so he was able to walk in the house with a smile on his face and his head held high.

Edward and Bella met him in the kitchen with worried looks on their faces. He made sure to think pleasant thoughts – or to at least fill them with pictures from that magazine so Edward would stop being so nosy.

"Was that really a bed on the back lawn?" Bella asked incredulously.

Surprisingly, Emmett found himself smiling. It was borderline hysterical, but it was still a smile. "Yeah, Rose tossed it out. Says we're getting a divorce."

He caught the worried glance the two of them shared, as well as the swift motion of Bella's hand to Edward's arm as they shared a thought.

"Didn't you tell me that she's threatened that once before?" Bella reminded them.

Edward nodded gravely. "Yes, but that was 1973. We…they were all having a bit too much fun then." He ignored his wife's pointed stare and cleared his throat just as Jasper came into the room, shrugging off his worn leather jacket.

"Rose tore out of the garage like a bat out of hell," he murmured softly as he removed his matching riding gloves. "Anyone want to let me know what's going on?"

"She's threatening divorce," Edward explained gently.

The corner of Jasper's mouth tucked up in a wry smile. "Again?"

Bella frowned at him. "We're serious. She threw her bed out the window."

Jasper was quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning over Emmett's form. The burly man felt almost as if he were naked, having his brother read him so easily. He could hide his thoughts and words, but having someone sneak into your innermost feelings was invasive and horrifying.

"I'm sure she'll come to her senses," Bella offered kindly, putting her hand near Emmett's elbow. He looked down at the woman, the newest to their clan, and gave the biggest fake smile he could muster.

"I'm sure," he replied with a grin. "And screw her if she doesn't."

But by the time the rush ordered divorce papers arrived from Mr. Jenks' office the next day, that grin had disappeared.