Part 3 – Woodstock, 1969.
The decade of the sixties was a whirlwind of social change in America, and we found this reflected within our own family, as we moved out of what had been a particularly repressive decade for us.
Alice and Jasper had joined our family in 1950, just walking up to the front porch one day and announcing that they were home, and which way was their room? After some initial confusion we welcomed them with open arms and it soon seemed as though they'd always been with us apart from one thing: the difficulty Jasper had adjusting to our 'vegetarian' lifestyle. He had lived on human blood since his change in 1863 and it was a struggle for him to alter that. Not only because of the temptation of taste and satisfaction, but also because in his vampire life he had grown to rely very heavily on his instincts to keep him safe and he was prone to react first and only think with the human part of his mind later.
Jasper's unpredictability led to very frequent moves over the next fifteen years. School was out of the question and Alice refused to attend without him. Edward and Emmett and I tried, but the constant moves made this difficult and although we continued to study by ourselves and with Carlisle we basically gave up formal education. Avoiding drawing attention to our family in any way became a necessity, and during this time we turned inward and became closer as a family unit. Apart from Carlisle, who continued his hospital work, the human world seemed to exist only on the periphery of our lives as we immersed ourselves in each other and the family.
It wasn't boring. We were all good at entertaining ourselves, becoming obsessed with hobbies and skills as the came up and then just as easily tossing them aside for something new. For the first time we had a television for entertainment, as well as our standbys of books and music and art and cars.
More than anything else, Alice and Jasper were like a shiny new toy for Edward and Emmett and I, with hosts of new stories and information and games. Alice's gift also proved an exciting new diversion as we explored different ways to use it- anything from cheating at chess to hunting to making money. In fact making money became one of our favourite past times as we all took to gambling in a big way. With a mind reader and now a seer in the family, a night out at a casino could be a very lucrative way to spend time.
There had always been money in the family. Carlisle had been accruing it for centuries; and after his human death Edward had managed, through means that ran the gamut from unethical to downright illegal, to inherit his own family's considerable estate. Of course Esme, Emmett and I had brought nothing material with us, but after a certain point money makes money without effort and there had never been a shortage. But now, with the stock market to play and Alice's gift to guide us, our wealth went through the stratosphere.
By the middle of the 60's though, we were ready for a change. Jasper had gained a measure of control that made the close human contact of school possible for him, so when Carlisle was offered a job in a northern hospital he accepted it and we moved as a family to New York and settled in to begin a new and more human life. We bought a ramshackle farmhouse on the edge of a state forest wilderness and Esme set about transforming it into a home, and Emmett, Edward, Jasper, Alice and I enrolled in school.
It was the first time the five of us had attended together, and stories and identities had to be created. We began what would become our most common tale to explain our family situation- Edward, Emmett and Alice took the surname Cullen and became Carlisle and Esme's adopted children; Jasper and I, alike enough in colouring and features, used my surname of Hale and posed as Esme's twin niece and nephew, living with her to attend school.
The five of us kept close during those high school years. Emmett and I, without making a big deal of it, signed up for classes that kept one or both of us alongside Jasper at all times. Jasper had not been to school since his human life of a century before and Alice had no memory of attending a school at all, so the two of them found it all to be new and often unsettling and welcomed the help from Edward and Emmett and I. We ate lunch together, studied together and once Emmett, always one to follow the prevailing trends, bought a kombi van, travelled to and from school together. It wasn't until two years had passed and Emmett, Jasper and I graduated and moved on to college that the cracks in the previously unassailable family unit began to make themselves felt.
Emmett and I had a glorious time at college. I had been chafing against the restrictions of our life for some time, and going to college felt like stumbling into a different world, a world of more freedom and fun than I'd ever had available to me before. All of a sudden the rigid rules of etiquette and manners and the 'place in life' that I'd had drummed into me from childhood didn't seem to matter anymore. I had freedom to wear what I wanted, say what I wanted and become what I wanted to become and I embraced it wholeheartedly.
I passed over the more feminine academic pursuits and did physics. Certainly female students were a very small minority in that area, and treated with varying levels of respect by the other students and the professors, but with my perfect vampire memory and rapid reading speed it did not take long before I was known as a formidable intellect. Emmett took a more eclectic approach to his degree and enrolled in a number of different courses, but made only enough effort to scrape up the bare number of credits and passing grades to avoid being expelled. Instead, he taught himself to play the guitar, and spent much of his college time hanging out with the stoners and radicals in smoky cafes and the shady courtyard.
Together, we had another wedding and invited many new friends. He stopped wearing shoes and I stopped wearing a bra. I braided flowers into my hair and he and I joined protests against a war a million miles away that he could never be drafted for anyway, and participated in demonstrations for safe and affordable birth control and abortions that we'd never need. We talked philosophy and listened to music endlessly and pretended, once again, to be human.
In short, both of us forgot to be careful. We forgot that our safety depended on playing by the rules and being inconspicuous. We forgot the cardinal rule of the family, don't draw attention to yourself.
It was mostly my fault, I know that. I loved attention and admiration, and it was my vanity that stopped me from seeing clearly. The 60s me found it so gratifying to walk across the quad and know that I was being watched by the envious eyes of the other girls and the admiring gaze of the men. In class I knew that the professors and other students looked at me initially, all blonde hair and endless legs, and dismissed me as nothing more than a pretty face and I worked and fought to make them respect me as so much than that. They did in the end, since I could run rings around them academically and, as exams and papers proved this again and again, they all knew it. After a decade of being almost exclusively with family who never did pander to my vanity, my ego needed the stroking I got from the accolades and admiration of the humans around me, and so much pleasure did I get from it that I failed, once again, to stop and think about what it was I was doing and risking.
The following year, Edward and Alice joined Jasper, Emmett and I at college. For Alice it was the first time and, as she studied fashion design, she threw herself into this hedonistic life of play too, dragging Jasper along with her. She loved the music and the clothes and built around us all a peculiarly nocturnal social life. Jasper, who had spent little time socialising with Emmett and I and our human friends the previous year, joined her willingly enough, although with his still shaky control tended to remain on the outskirts of the group. He was studying history and philosophy and, unlike Emmett, was also determined to graduate well.
Edward took up a medical degree for a second time, as much to assist Carlisle in keeping up with current developments as for his own interest. He behaved as we always had, as we should have behaved- circumspectly, drawing no attention to himself, remembering always the rules we lived by and why they were so important. He was the voice of reason, and warned the rest of us often that what we were doing was foolish and risked much.
I don't know why we didn't listen. Simply because we didn't want to, I suppose. Because we were having fun, Emmett and Alice and I; and because after living so reclusively and constantly moving for so long we were enjoying being settled and being a part of this new social world around us; because it was so easy to ignore Edward's dour warnings when he seemed to disapprove of everything; because he and I still sparked off each other and it was too easy for me to irritate him with my music and flowers and politics, and I was still such a baby and a bitch that I enjoyed that. We overestimated our abilities to control ourselves and underestimated how noticeable all that preternatural beauty and skill made us in a crowd. Like Edward, Carlisle and Esme were concerned, but we were careless and arrogant when we shouldn't have been, and just as Edward predicted disaster was inevitable.
"Mmmm." I was sitting on the edge of the kitchen bench, Emmett standing between my legs as he kissed me deeply, one big hand sliding down my back as the other tangled in my hair. I let my own hands wander under his t-shirt and heard the rumble of pleasure as they lingered on the waistband of his jeans.
"Do you two mind?" Edward, behind a pile of books on the kitchen table, frowned at us. "I'm trying to work here."
"Sorry," Emmett said cheerfully, turning his back to me and facing Edward as I scowled. Edward caught my look and glared back.
"You've got a bedroom…go and use that," he snapped. "No one else is particularly interested in watching you, something you might consider when you're selecting your clothes Rosalie."
I glanced down at my short skirt and skimpy halter and rolled my eyes. "Your jealousy is showing Edward. Perhaps you should go and find yourself your own piece of ass and then you might stop begrudging everyone else enjoying what they have."
"Rosalie!" Esme, coming in from outside with an armful of flowers sounded scandalised. "Mind your language, please!"
Carlisle followed behind her, more flowers in a basket over his arm. Ever the peacemaker he gave Edward a sympathetic look and then winked at me. "They're just clothes. No need to get upset." Of course he took the long view of things. Fashion was barely a blip on the radar when you were over three hundred years old. He bent over the books Edward was flipping through, and asked a technical sounding question.
I slipped off the bench and began arranging some of Esme's flowers in a vase, still annoyed with Edward. I hated him commenting on my clothes. He never did it to Alice, even when we wore the same thing. Admittedly clothes looked quite different on Alice's tiny, delicate figure to the way they did on my big breasts and small waist and long legs, but it was still a double standard on Edward's part and that frustrated me. He'd probably prefer it if I wore the long skirts and high necks of the Victorian era that his mother had worn, I mused crossly.
Emmett came up behind me, his hands moving up my thighs and sliding under the hem of skirt to cup my rear. His fingers twitched between my legs, and it took effort not to fling the flowers aside and start rubbing myself against him. He nuzzled at my neck, and a second later there was a crash as a book went flying into the back of his head.
"Stop it!" Edward shouted. "Go away! Emmett, I can read your mind! I don't even have to try; in fact I can't avoid it because you transmit thought like you're using a megaphone! Just because I can't see what you're doing doesn't mean I don't know and I wish I didn't! All I ask is that you and Rosalie just go somewhere else!"
Emmett threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, okay! I just forget that you can read my mind Edward, I'm not exactly thinking of you when I'm thinking about…okay, okay, we're going!"
He grabbed my hand and dragged me along behind him to our room. Unlike the other bedrooms which were in the recently built extension to the house, ours was in the old cottage part beyond Carlisle's study and the dining room. I suspected this was more careful planning on Esme's part than coincidence. Edward was not the only one who objected to the frequent and occasionally (even I could admit it) obnoxious displays of affection between Emmett and I.
"He's such a prude," I muttered under my breath.
"Nah, Edward's okay," Emmett easily held two of my hands in one of his and pushed me backwards until my legs hit the bed and I fell onto my back. "You should go easy on him baby doll. I wouldn't want to listen to what goes on in my head either, if I didn't get to take my beautiful girl back to the bedroom and make it happen!" He gave a rich laugh, and undid my halter with his free hand, pulling it away from my body and eyeing my bare breasts with clear approval. He lowered his head and flicked his tongue over my nipple until it hardened under his touch and I arched my back to push closer to his mouth.
"Oh, Rosa girl…" Emmett moved his attention to my other breast, clearly intending to take his time. "He's insane to hate on the clothes though…so much easier to get you out of than some of that other stuff you used to wear! All those buttons! And not wearing a bra…I dig that baby doll." He lapped at my breast and then sucked hard, teeth grazing the nipple so that I turned my head and muffled a moan in my own arm, which Emmett was still holding above my head.
His free hand slid under my skirt again and my panties disappeared in his strong fingers as he nudged my legs further apart with his knees. I moved against his hand as his mouth went back to my breast and I felt the familiar wave of pleasure building. "Emmett…"
He released my hands and I grabbed his dark hair and pulled him up to me, kissing him across his face until I met his lips. "Love you, Emmett, love you…"
"I want you so bad, Rosa," Emmett drew away enough to look at me, his breathing ragged and his eyes dark with desire as he took his hands away to fumble with the buttons of his jeans. "My angel girl, I need you…"
"I want you, oh Emmett…" I grabbed at him, feeling the bulging muscles of his shoulders as he picked me up and tossed me further up the bed so he could lie full length above me. "Now, oh god yes, yes, yes…"
I opened myself to him and felt him slide in, all of him, filling me up and making me whole as we moved together, his reverent words of love echoing in my mind. "My Rosa, my angel…love you, love you, want you…need you Rosa girl, my Rosa…yes, oh god yes!" I wrapped arms and legs around him, kissing and touching wherever hands and mouth could reach, driving him on until he came with a final thrust and a shout. Only then did I let myself go, coming apart around him as I lost myself in what he made me feel, my own sounds muffled in the broad chest that loomed above me. Mine, mine, mine.
Afterwards I sat naked on the bed brushing my hair as Emmett lounged beside me, strumming happily on his guitar.
"To everything – turn, turn, turn/ There is a season, turn, turn, turn/ And a time for every purpose under heaven./ A time to be born, a time to die/ A time to plant, a time to reap./ A time to kill, a time to heal/ A time to laugh, a time to weep." He stopped singing and paused for a minute. "Maybe not a time for everything for us though," he said thoughtfully.
"You're getting very good at that," I said to him, continuing to brush. Emmett's voice was lovely, and although his huge hands were not really ideal for playing guitar his vampire skills made up for that.
"Thank you. I'm not exactly Edward on his damn piano, but it'll do. There'd be too many questions to answer if I started carrying a piano to school anyway."
Edward and I managed several days of civility before the next blow up. He came home from an evening class and stormed into the living room where the rest of us were watching television together and threw a piece of paper at me. "You didn't think to mention this?"
I scanned the paper. It was an announcement that had been pinned on the notice board of the science faculty about the awarding of various prizes and the recipients, including a prestigious and seldom awarded physics honour to Rosalie Cullen. I shrugged and passed the announcement across to Carlisle. "They're having a ceremony for it, but since I was hardly expecting you to come along and clap for me Edward, no, I didn't think to mention it."
"You just don't think, and that's the problem!" Edward turned and appealed to Carlisle. "We need to talk about this Carlisle. It's not just this award, it's that Rosalie seems to be going out of her way to attract attention and make herself known. Everyone in college knows the name Rosalie Cullen now, and that notoriety starts extending out to the rest of us!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry for sullying your precious name with my notoriety," I scoffed sarcastically. "I'm only using that name because I married Emmett…I'll use my own damn name again if it bothers you that much."
"Oh, stop being so obtuse!" Edward sounded disgusted. "It doesn't matter what name you use if you're going to continue to be so obvious Rosalie! You know our kind survives by being inconspicuous. We don't draw attention to ourselves, and yet here you are playing at becoming a female physicist and prancing about campus flaunting your body and getting your name and photograph in the student newspaper every week!"
"I'm not flaunting anything!" I shouted, moving swiftly to my feet and facing Edward across the room. "So it's fine for you to do medicine and keep a 4.0, but I'm not allowed to do the same in the sciences because I might attract attention? I should have just stayed in the arts or nursing faculties like all the other girls? Women can do more than that, I can do more than that, and screw you if you think I shouldn't!" I breathed hard and fought to control my rage. "And this is what I look like Edward. I can't change it even if I wanted to, which I don't, and damn you for always trying to define me by it!"
Carlisle moved to stand between Edward and I, a troubled frown on his face. "Rosalie, calm down."
I crossed my arms sulkily across my chest. "I've had enough of his constant criticisms."
"If you ever listened and thought about anyone but yourself…" Edward began, but stopped as Carlisle frowned at him.
"That's enough Edward." He glanced down at the college notice in his hand. "That is a very impressive award Rosalie."
I shrugged and didn't answer.
"But I do see what Edward is saying, although I would suggest you could perhaps be a little more tactful Edward…it might get you further," Carlisle said lightly.
Edward's scowl now matched my own.
"We do need to try and avoid attention," Carlisle went on. "We can't have people looking too closely and noticing things that don't add up, or there will be questions. Photographs and prizes and standing out…these things are evidence of your existence here and can make things very difficult later on. All these people who know you and will remember you- and you're memorable enough even when you're trying not to be Rosalie! - well that can cause trouble in the future if they see you and realise you haven't changed."
"So what would you have me do?" I snapped aggressively. "Fail my exams and dress like a nun? Drop the sciences and go back to playing tennis and doing needlework like my parents would have had me do?" It was a sign of just how upset I was that I raised the subject of my human parents.
"No, nothing like that," Carlisle said soothingly. "Just consider the implications Rosalie, that's all."
"Of course I'm always the one at fault," I muttered bitterly. Without another word to them I turned and stalked from the room, hearing Carlisle sigh and ask Edward for a word.
As was my habit I went out to the garage to sulk, calming myself down in the familiar ritual of cleaning the engine of Emmett's Kombi. He'd bought it on impulse, without consulting with either Edward or I, and it really was the worst vehicle we'd ever owned. Emmett was absurdly fond of it though and refused to even entertain the thought of trading it in for something better.
"You really should have asked me before you bought this tin can," I said without turning around when my sharp ears caught the sound of the door. "It's a complete piece of crap Emmett, and there's only so much I can do to keep it on the road…oh." Because the person who entered the garage was not Emmett as I'd expected, but Carlisle.
He smiled at me cheerfully. "You'll just have to do the best with it you can, and keep trying to talk Emmett into a trade in! I came to ask if you'd care to go out hunting with me?"
I hesitated. I almost never hunted with Carlisle, not since my early newborn days when he'd taught me what I needed to know to keep myself fed. Nowadays he needed to eat less often than the rest of us and almost always went out with Esme. "Sure," I said finally. "Why not?"
The nearby state forest was not the best hunting ground, and Carlisle and I had to content ourselves with a herd of wild goat. It wasn't until we'd drunk our fill and were sitting quietly on a rocky outcrop looking across the distant hills that I spoke. "Please tell me you didn't ask me out here to scold me like an errant child."
Carlisle chuckled. "I did not. I don't mean to be an overbearing father, but I'm over three hundred years old Rosalie and sometimes you all seem like such babes in the woods that I can't help myself."
I smiled briefly. "But you did want to talk to me."
"Yes." Carlisle tapped his chin with a finger. "Not to tell you what to do Rose, because you are a grown woman and can make your own choices, but to ask you to think carefully about your interactions with the human world. Edward spoke too harshly, but he does have your best interests at heart. I don't think he's quite moved beyond thinking of you as his baby vampire sister."
I sighed. "I know the rules Carlisle, but the world is changing and it's not as easy as it was to find a place in it, living as we do. Being what we are."
"I understand that," Carlisle nodded. "I suppose I've been watching the world change for so long I have forgotten how overwhelming it can seem. Endless time gives you a peculiar perspective."
"I will think about what I'm doing more," I promised. "And I'm sorry I've been causing so much trouble," I added, the apology feeling awkward on my lips.
"I'm not really," Carlisle grinned. "For your sake Rose, if I had my time again I would have just eased your suffering and let you go after I found you that night. I know that you feel it would have been a better course. But on a purely selfish level I cannot regret that I made you one of us." He looked at me with the kind of loving affection I seldom saw from anyone but Emmett. "You challenge us Rosalie, and I think that's a good thing. You've pushed us all out into the human world in a way we have not been before, and while that has brought its own difficulties I also believe it has brought with it growth and knowledge. Again, these are good things. I've watched you grow, and you make me proud." He laughed and patted me cheerfully on the shoulder. "You brought us Emmett too, and God bless you for that because I can't imagine family life with him!"
I couldn't either. The brief time between my vampire birth and finding my beloved Emmett was a dark period I did not like to think of.
Carlisle rose gracefully to his feet and, ever the gentleman, offered me his hand although of course it was unnecessary. As I stood beside him he looked at me thoughtfully with his clear golden eyes. "I confess I had had hopes for you and Edward…but that wasn't the only reason I changed you Rosalie. It wasn't only seeing what those animals did to you at the end either," he said quietly. "I saw your potential, all that strength and passion and intelligence…You probably weren't aware of this, but I knew your parents Rosalie. You deserved more than your human life gave you."
This was more than he had ever said to me of that time, and I stared back at him as I absorbed his words. He smiled at me a little ruefully. "Not that you wouldn't have made an excellent lady of society…but I confess I find you more interesting as you are."
We returned to the house as dawn began lighting the sky. Carlisle disappeared into his bedroom to talk to Esme, and I went in search of Emmett. I found him in the living room playing chess with Jasper. Alice and Edward were sitting side by side on the sofa nearby, Alice drawing some new designs and Edward studying an auto magazine. I rubbed my hand across Emmett's curly hair and sat by Alice, who eagerly began showing me what she was working on.
"You must promise you'll be my model for the show," she begged me. "Jasper has said he will as well, and I'm designing most of this for your wardrobe anyway."
I nodded in agreement, and then caught Edward's eye. I braced for some murmured sarcasm, but instead he gave me a diffident smile and tentatively held out his magazine. "I've been considering this for my next car…what do you think?"
I took the magazine and began reading, and a few moments later we were deep in discussion of the relative merits and faults of the new generations of sports cars. That was how it always went between Edward and I; bitter spats and angry words, and then one of us (usually Edward) would extend an olive branch and we'd go on as before. Brother and sister, sometimes friends. Fortunately he was not the type to bear a grudge, and although I hated to admit it I knew Carlisle was right and Edward did have the family's best interests at heart.
Some time after this we were once again all engaged in various pursuits in the living room, together and separately. Jasper was reading, Emmett was sitting on one end of the sofa playing his guitar while I lay along the rest with my feet in his lap, half listening to Emmett's singing and half listening to Alice talk as she worked on embroidering one of her new clothing creations. Esme was sitting beside Alice and sewing as well, while Edward and Carlisle were discussing medicine in low voices over at the table and Esme.
"Nearly done, I think," Alice announced, tying off a knot and biting the loose thread. "Try it on Rosalie? I need to see it."
I nodded obligingly and stood up, allowing Alice to strip off my long skirt and t shirt and replace it with her newly made dress, fussing as she pulled it this way and that to get it hanging to her satisfaction. Stepping back to look at it, she clapped her hands in delight. "It's perfect! Rosalie, you look like a dream."
I stepped over to the window, eying my reflection. The dress was long and floating, heavy with embroidery around the hem and neckline and hinting deliciously at the body beneath it. "You've outdone yourself Alice, this is brilliant." I moved, enjoying the feel of the skirts swishing around my legs. "Beautiful."
Alice bounced on the couch gleefully. "You are such fun to dress up Rosalie!" She crossed over to me and adjusted the dress a little. "It might be better if it's slightly more fitted here…and you need shoes of course." She fussed with it for a minute but she began pulling it off my shoulders. "I'll fix that tiny thing and then it's yours."
Emmett blew a kiss at me as I picked up my other clothes, but with a sideways glance at Carlisle and Edward who were studiously ignoring me I simply winked at Emmett and dressed myself again. Alice had no concept of modesty really and was too impatient to have me go somewhere else to undress, and I honestly didn't care who saw what, but I tried to be at least somewhat considerate of those who found such casual nudity a little uncomfortable. At least, I did when I wasn't trying to needle Edward, but he'd been quiet and courteous since our last shouting match and I didn't want to upset that applecart.
Idly I began picking through the junk Emmett always managed to accumulate in the bottom of his guitar case. "You are such a slob sometimes," I remarked. I sorted out some receipts, some notices, two unopened bill envelopes addressed to Carlisle that Emmett must have pulled out of the mailbox one day, several unfinished school assignments, and then a colourful flier. "Woodstock music and art festival…did you want to go?" I scanned the musician line up. "It sounds good."
Emmett shrugged. "I thought it would be fun, but it's outside in August. Too sunny."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Alice said blithely. "It's going to pour with rain and they'll play a lot at night…" She shook her head, and then looked at Emmett with an enormous grin spreading over her face. "We're all going to go!"
"All of us?" I said sceptically, with a glance across at Edward and Carlisle. "Camping?" To be honest, that part of it was not that appealing to me either.
"Yes!" Alice was radiant with excitement. "It's going to be so much fun!" She grabbed my hands and danced with around the living room. "We're all going to Woodstock!"
It wasn't to be quite as simple as that, of course. Emmett cheered and raised his guitar, so it was obvious that he approved. I shrugged, but in the face of Emmett and Alice's determination I was not going to argue so I was in too. Esme laughingly said she would come along to keep us out of trouble, and then Alice turned to Carlisle.
"And you'll come too," she said confidently. "They'll need a doctor in the first aid tent."
Carlisle frowned. "I'm not sure Alice. Are you sure it's a wise decision? It will be very close contact with humans."
"If you're concerned about me I can remain here," Jasper said in clipped tones. He hated admitting any weakness and fought his battles against temptation silently. I suspected only Alice, and probably Edward, knew the full extent of how difficult he found this lifestyle.
"It's madness for any of us," Edward said baldly, looking across at Alice. "Really…isn't it about time you all accepted that you're not human anymore and that your involvement in the human world must be, by necessity, limited?"
"I think we're all aware of that Edward," Jasper said brusquely.
"There's no need to get testy," Alice said brightly. "We know to take care, we're always careful, and this is going to be so much fun! Apart from the mud," she glanced at me apologetically. "I know you'll hate that Rosalie, but I can't do much about it."
"So you don't see any danger in this?" Carlisle asked Alice.
"No! At least…not now," she amended hastily. "Of course things change, you know that nothing is ever set until it happens, but at the moment all I see is that we're going to have a wonderful time."
"What about it Edward?" Carlisle turned to him. "I would feel better if you came with us. Your abilities offer a greater degree of safety in these circumstances."
Edward shook his head in frustration. "Camping in the mud for two days to listen to music I don't like?"
Alice skipped across to Edward and stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. "You know you're going to say yes."
Edward sighed. "Yes, of course I'm going to say yes. Do I ever say no to you, really? I'll come with you." He gave a long suffering sigh. "I'll come along and I'll listen to what people are thinking, although I still think the entire idea is a bad one. I'll put my foot down over one thing though…I am not pitching my tent within a hundred yards of Emmett and Rosalie!"
Determined to blend in at the festival we bought the sort of camping equipment that seven people human people would need, heavy canvas tents that would block the sun completely, sleeping bags, folding chairs. Carlisle even insisted we buy a cooler and he stocked it with food and drink. Emmett loaded all our things into and onto the Kombi, only to have Edward refuse to ride in it. Privately I agreed with Edward and thought Emmett's beloved van was nothing but an embarrassment, but with only a little grumbling I packed up the tools I anticipated needing to keep it running to and from the festival and prepared to go.
Perhaps most ironically, we bought tickets. That's the Cullens, always law abiding! Even Alice didn't see, at that point, that it was going to turn into the most famous free concert ever.
"How is it looking out there?"
Emmett dropped the door flap of the tent and stretched out beside me, his knees bent so he would fit, his golden eyes looking luminous in the dim light. "Insane! I've never seen so many people in one place. I wish I could get out there."
I absently stroked his cheek. "It will be sundown soon, then you can go play baby."
We'd arrived in the predawn half-light that morning and set up our campsite at some distance to the main stage, close by a thickset forest of trees. Carlisle was still uneasy, but Emmett, Jasper and I were happy and laughing, and Alice was nearly hysterical with excitement. We were so confident that we could handle everything…
As the sun came up and the light intensified we had taken refuge in our temporary home, listening to the crowds build outside. Carlisle put on a long sleeved shirt, a hat and his medical gloves and headed over to volunteer at the first aid tent, leaving Esme with Edward, Alice and Jasper in the large tent. Emmett and I had preferred to be together in the smaller tent and had spent most of the day reading and playing Scrabble. By the early evening, listening to the crowd and the music begin, Emmett was starting to get frustrated.
"It probably wouldn't even matter with that crowd if they saw me in the light," he said thoughtfully. "Why do you think I hang out with stoners so much? They see any fucking sparkle or anything out of the ordinary and all they do is mutter 'duuuude' at me."
I raised an eyebrow. "I hope you've been behaving yourself!"
"Oh, always…" Almost lazily, Emmett whipped out a hand and had my book off me. "Don't read any more. Play with me baby."
I smirked at him. "More Scrabble? I had no idea you were so into linguistics."
"Oh, ha ha ha. We can't all be intellectuals." He pulled me closer to him and flicked my earlobe with his tongue, his hand at the lacing on the front of my dress. "How about you take this off Rosa girl? Alice makes a pretty dress and all, but you don't need anything else to make you more beautiful than you already are." His eyes went dark, and he gave me a lopsided smile. "We've got a little while before we can go out, and I've got a better way than Scrabble to fill in some time."
Willingly I slipped out of my clothes and lay with my Emmett, worshipping the big hard body that he shared with me so willingly and eagerly taking the pleasure he gave with such love.
"My Rosa girl," he murmured, and kissed the top of my head as he breathed in the scent of my hair. "I can never have enough of you."
I stretched out against him, my face buried in the curve of his shoulder, the taste of his skin on my lips. I didn't answer him in words, but I found one of his hands and held it, very tight.
"It's pretty much dark outside now," Emmett commented, but his earlier anxiousness had vanished and he seemed content to lie together, his hands running along my spine and through my hair. It wasn't until there was an impatient noise at the tent flap and Alice crawled in that he moved.
"Hey!" Emmett protested, laying a hand across his groin somewhat ineffectually.
"Hey nothing," Alice said briskly, pushing a pair of jeans at him. "You two must have finished by now- get dressed and get up! Come on Rose, I want you to come with me!"
Dressing in a small tent with Emmett was difficult enough; with Alice there it was impossible. She slipped back out and a few seconds later I joined her, now wearing my dress again. Bare chested, Emmett followed.
"Look at that crowd!" Alice's eyes were shining. "The atmosphere is amazing…we have to go and join in!"
Jasper and Esme were making their way across to us, Esme looking younger than usual with the flowers and braids I guessed Alice had been responsible for adorning her head. Jasper looked slightly uneasy, but smiled at us readily enough. Edward decided to stay at the campsite, quite content to read and listen to the music from there, and the other four of us walked across the field to join the swirling, intoxicating crowd.
It was extraordinary. The crush of humans all around us, the sound of so many heartbeats and the scent of so much blood was intense, and all of us paused for a minute on the edges to adjust before we ventured further. I don't know what it was really, the drugs or the dark or the music, but unlike most human gatherings that we walked through, there was a complete absence of fear there. People brushed past my marble skin and didn't even flinch. I pushed further into the crowd, losing myself in the sensations assaulting every one of my senses, Emmett's hand gripped in mine. I noticed, without paying much attention, Jasper turn abruptly and push away through the crowd, heading back towards the campsite. Alice, with an apologetic shrug and a worried smile followed him. I don't know how much longer before Esme turned to me, black eyed and not breathing and whispered, "I must go back…it's too much Rose!" and fled back to the relative safety of being with Edward and Alice and Jasper. I keep Emmett with me, and he laughed as I danced with him and when it got too much for him he picked me up and crushed me against him, breathed in my hair and kissed me, drowning himself in my touch and feel and scent to block out this most extreme of temptations.
That was how it went at Woodstock, at first. When it was night time, or cloudy or raining I immersed myself in the crowd and the music and the excitement of it. Usually with Emmett and Alice, sometimes Jasper and Esme too, even Edward once or twice. Carlisle stayed busy in the first aid section but came to check on us frequently, concerned about the increasingly disorganised and chaotic nature of the festival happening around us. I didn't care about any of that, I was pretending to be ordinary, and as I moved among them and spoke to so many of these humans that I didn't know, dancing and laughing and splashing through the mud, it began to seem like I could become what I was pretending to be. When the sun shone I made my own fun with Emmett, playing games and making slow, lazy love in the sun warmed tent as we waited for the night. Alice braided flowers into my hair, and the two of us held hands and giggled as we danced in the rain. And while her visions told her of the weather and the storm and how Carlisle was going to share all our food and it wouldn't be wasted after all, she saw nothing of what mattered until it was too late.
I was with her, on the edge of the crowd as she laughed and gulped in clear air to ease the burn of her thirst. "I don't know how you can be so strong," she exclaimed. "It's so hard sometimes…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes went glassy for a moment, and then her face contorted in horror. She seized my hand and ran with her full vampire speed away from the crowds and into the forest near our tents, not caring who saw us, pulling me along in her flying wake, plunging through the trees until we found the boys. Once there, all I could do was scream because things had gone horribly, terribly wrong.
We were standing in a clearing, just a tiny break in the trees, and it was ripe with the scent of human blood. I clamped my senses down against it, hearing Alice moan and cringe against me as she fought her desire for it and did the same, but I could do nothing for her as I stared in terror at what I saw before us. A human body, or at least pieces of a human body, lying in the grass, and the snarling, snapping whirlwind that was Jasper and Emmett as they fought, eyes black with thirst and bright with the frenzy of blood lust.
Edward was already there, his eyes blazing but alone helpless to stop what was happening. "Thank god you're here," he shouted, and in a few words sketched out for us what had happened.
The close contact with so much human prey had proved too much for Jasper's always questionable control, and when he came across this human alone in the forest he had snapped and gone in for the kill. Emmett was with him, and although he had been resisting temptation for a longer time and usually had greater mastery over himself than Jasper, the scent of freshly spilled blood had been his undoing. He had tried to take the human from Jasper and then both of them had turned on each other, all reason gone in the face of the instinctive drive for dominance and blood.
"I need you to help me separate them," Edward told Alice and me tersely. "Alice, can you handle Jasper? Rose, I need you to help me with Emmett."
Emmett roared like an enraged bull, and then there was an unearthly scream from Jasper and the sound of rending stone as Emmett tore off his arm. Jasper sank his teeth into Emmett's thigh before Alice and I, unable to bear watching anymore, dove in beside Edward to stop them.
It didn't take long. Heedless of the possible danger I threw myself at Emmett who, already off balance from the pain of a bite in his leg, fell with a crash, bringing me down with him. Still blind with thirst he grabbed me in his huge hands, snarling, and for a terrifying moment it wasn't Emmett with me at all, but those men in the alley who had hurt me so much as they took my life…I let out a thin scream of pure terror and whispered his name like a prayer.
That fear, and that prayer, touched Emmett then as perhaps nothing else could have, and a second later he had me wrapped in his big arms, hands holding me protectively close as he rained kisses on my face. "Oh Rosa girl, beautiful angel, no, no, no, don't…no one is hurting you. It's fine, it's fine, it's just me Rosa, just Emmett…oh holy fucking shit," and he pushed me aside and staggered to his feet as he took in what had happened.
Carlisle and Esme arrived on the scene then, taking in the sight of the five of us staring at each other in sick horror, the human body that Jasper and Emmett had fought over spread in a mangled mess of blood soaked pieces before us. Carlisle took in the situation at a glance and took charge, although for once even his preternatural calm was rattled.
"Jasper, if I reattach that arm immediately there'll be no lasting damage."
Silently Jasper picked up his own severed arm and handed it to Carlisle who immediately pulled off Jasper's shirt and tore it in to strips, using them to strap the arm back in place. Jasper grimaced as Carlisle pushed hard into his shoulder socket, and I turned away.
Beside me Emmett was shifting from foot to foot in agitation, mumbling a string of horrified curses under his breath. His hand went again to his bitten leg and he winced, then yanked down his jeans to inspect the damage. Jasper had bitten him high on the thigh and had gone deep, teeth tearing through skin and muscle. The wound wasn't healing, and even as I looked at it began to seem oddly inflamed.
"Edward, can you please remove that body? We'll have to dispose of it. Bury it deep; Esme will help you. Let me know if you find any identification." Carlisle frowned. He'd had a great deal of experience over the years now in disposing of human bodies when anyone's control lapsed, and he generally preferred to offer them dignity, a proper burial and closure for family left behind if at all possible. But this mess…well, there would be no peace for the family in seeing how this human had died.
His face set, Edward set about the grisly task with Esme helping him, unable to fully hide her distress. Carlisle tied a final knot in the strapping holding Jasper's arm in place and moved across to examine Emmett's leg.
"Why isn't it healing?" Emmett asked, his voice holding an odd note of pain.
"Vampire bites are different to ordinary wounds," Carlisle said quietly, probing at Emmett's leg. "It will heal given time, but it will leave a scar. There's nothing I can do for it."
Emmett pulled up his jeans again and looked at me guiltily, before limping towards Jasper. "I'm sorry Jasper. I didn't mean…fuck man, I'm just so sorry. Carlisle…damnit, I don't know what I can say."
Jasper shook his head. "It was my fault Emmett. Carlisle, I know I've let you all down again, and I apologise unreservedly. I think it would be for the best if I leave the family once this has been sorted out."
Alice, Emmett and I began to speak at the same time, but Carlisle held up a hand and shook his head. "Not now. Not here- we need to get home and then we can talk."
We dismantled our camp in moments and then realised that extricating the Kombi from the festival field was impossible. Emmett wanted to carry it across fields to another road and, despite my feelings for the vehicle, I would have helped him but Edward pointed out the folly of that and the risk of being seen, and Emmett reluctantly conceded he was right. Eventually we just stripped the van and the camp gear of any kind of identification and abandoned it where it was, returning home on foot. Our Woodstock adventure was over.
Edward did not say I told you so when we were all finally gathered at home, sitting silent and shocked in the living room, but we all knew he had warned us against our involvement and been proven right.
Emmett, never one to hold back, raked his hands through his hair and began speaking rapidly. "Look, I'm really, really sorry. Jasper, I feel so fucking awful about this I can't even tell you. I am so sorry. Carlisle, Esme, I know there's nothing I can say really. I just feel sick about it all, and…" He was speaking faster and faster in agitation, until I put a hand gently on his arm and kissed his shoulder and he subsided.
Jasper's face was bleak. "It would never have happened if I could restrain myself."
"The festival was too much," Esme said consolingly. "I didn't handle it well either."
Alice was twisting her hands unhappily. "I should have known…I'm sorry that I didn't see anything until it was too late."
"There's no point sitting around here with everyone feeling guilty and trying to take all the blame," I said shortly. "I think we all have regrets about what has happened and things we either did, or didn't do."
"Easy for you to say baby doll," Emmett muttered. "You've got more fucking control over yourself than anyone." I frowned at him and he shrugged. "Just saying."
Jasper rose and paced along the far wall, hands behind his back, and I was reminded that he had once been a soldier. "It is not only what occurred between Emmett and I. Although…" He paused and looked at Emmett. "You've become my brother Emmett, and I offer you my whole hearted apologies. Please don't trouble yourself any further about my arm, Carlisle knows what he's doing and it's healing perfectly well. I am sorry for your leg; judging by my own experience it will take about a week for a vampire bite of that size and depth to heal." Unconsciously he rubbed the multiple bite scars on his own arms, and resumed his pacing. "I'm starting to believe that this lifestyle is not possible for me," he said finally, clearly with some difficulty. "My human life involved war and my vampire life, until I met Alice, was nothing but bloodshed and violence. I fear that perhaps it's not possible to move past that. It is telling that my first reaction to feeling threatened by Emmett was to attempt to kill him."
"Aww, that doesn't mean anything," Emmett protested. "As if Edward hasn't wanted to kill me a million times since I showed up…as if Rose hasn't tried to! I'm an ass…it's a miracle I'm still alive."
Such typical self-abasement from Emmett, but the good natured humour of it was just what was needed to break the tension and there were smiles and slight chuckles around the room.
Carlisle leaned forward. "Jasper, change is always possible. Always. You have done an admirable job when faced with the very difficult task of overcoming your instincts."
Jasper impatiently waved his hand. "I fail more often than anyone!"
"Mastery comes with time," Edward said calmly. "It was harder in the beginning for everyone."
Esme was holding Carlisle's hand, her motherly face soft with concern. "Jasper, Edward speaks the truth. It takes time to gain the strength needed to resist, and even longer to gain the experience that allows you to handle situations where the temptation is very great. You and Alice are very new to this." She smiled lovingly at Carlisle. "I failed so many times in the beginning Jasper, I almost despaired at times. But Carlisle and Edward were always there to help me, and now we're all here for you."
Alice stepped lightly across to Jasper and took his hands in hers. "Please my love," she said tenderly. "Don't tear yourself apart. I know what you have lived through," and she dropped a butterfly light kiss on one of the scars on his arm, "but this is different…it's home Jasper, home and family."
Jasper's face bent towards her, the love clear in his eyes. "I know, darling one, but that's the thing, when I fail I bring danger and risk to all of you."
She shook her head. "Nothing we can't handle."
Carlisle rose to his feet. "Alice is right Jasper. We're a family, and if that is to mean anything we must forgive each other, and accept forgiveness when it is offered. Our kind do not usually live like this…as a group we are probably the largest outside of Volterra, and what binds us together is very different to their purposes. So please Jasper, let us hear no more of you and Alice leaving, not when I know it is really in your heart to stay."
Jasper hesitated, and then nodded. "If Emmett can forgive me…"
"Dude, it's done," Emmett held out his hands, palms up. "No hard feelings."
"The Woodstock festival was a mistake," Edward spoke quietly. "We should not have gone, any of us. I believe we need to remind ourselves that while we exist within the human world, we are not human. We can never be, and we would be wise to remember our limits."
There was a long silence. "I know you're directing that at me," I said finally.
Edward didn't deny it. "It is a matter of what you're willing to risk, and what you wish to protect," he said. "This family…as a group we can protect each other to a degree. Life is more interesting and more pleasant when there are more people we do not need to lie to and hide before. But the other side of that is that as a group we are far more noticeable than as individuals. You go out into the world Rosalie, all beauty and brains and perfection and people notice. Then they look further and see Emmett and Alice and everyone, and what was just one anomaly becomes a mystery. Humans don't like mysteries."
There was none of the usual biting sarcasm or barely concealed scorn in Edward's voice, and I bit my lip and nodded slowly as my hand unconsciously stole upward to touch the pendant bearing the Cullen crest I wore around my neck.
"This family we've built here is unusual," Edward went on. "I believe it deserves protection, because it will last when nothing in the human world will."
Emmett's arm wrapped around me, and he pulled me closer to him. I glanced across at Carlisle and Esme, Alice and Jasper, and then looked back at Edward. Yes, they were my family. All of them, and I knew then how much I would hate it if anything were to happen to them. We had built this family as a place of acceptance and love and belief in the future, and all of us had grown to depend upon it. Edward was right- nothing in the human world would endure as this family would, and as we sat together in the dawn light, the seven of us still with the mud of Woodstock on feet and hems, I knew I would do anything to protect it.
A/N- Completely fabricated backstory here, although it doesn't really contradict anything in the actual books as far as I know. Having said that, all the usual disclaimers apply- all the characters etc belong to Stephenie Meyer. The song Emmett sings is Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds (lots of other people too actually, that's just the version I was listening to at the time I was writing this); the Woodstock festival of 1969 was real, it really did rain a lot and the musicians played a lot at night. I will also add that the original idea of the Cullens at Woodstock came from Growing Up Cullen . the most hilarious Twilight fic to ever grace a computer screen. I hope they'll forgive me for borrowing their joke and making it a whole lot less funny, but I'm hoping this made a good story.
