Not Without A Fight
Annaleise Marie

Round Seven

AN: This is a chapter that I've been planning for awhile. It was actually written before chapter five. Haha. It's a pretty important plot point, so I guess I was just too excited about it to wait. XD

So now, on with the show! I own a toothbrush that sings "Hakuna Matata" to me while I brush my teeth, because I'm apparently four, but I do not own Twilight. That belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

---

EPOV

I never leave the house on the eighteenth of November. This year, it's the seven-year anniversary of my dad's death. I don't sink into depression or anything... I was too young when he died for that. I always stay home to take care of my mom.

That first year, when I was twelve, I went to a friend's house for a birthday party. He only lived a block away, so I wasn't worried when Mom didn't come to get me and walked home. When I got there, the house was wrecked. All of the family photos had been pulled from the walls and, by the looks of it, tossed across the room. Every surface in the house was bare, the contents of tabletops and counters scattered across the floor as though someone had simply swept them off. The living room smelled bitter, but I wouldn't know for a few more years what that smell was, or what amber liquid had soaked the carpet to cause it.

I found my mom in her room. She was on her bed, curled up, the covers strewn across the room. She looked up at me when she heard the door open, her eyes red and her face tear-stained, and she patted the bed, signaling that I should sit down.

"Do you miss your Dad, Emmett?" she asked. I shrugged. Her breath smelled like the living room carpet. "God, I miss him," she said quietly before she started crying again.

I stayed with her that night, and she held me, alternating between crying and telling me stories about us and Dad when I was little. It was one of those bittersweet memories, that you appreciate, and are glad happened, but wish could have happened under different circumstances, even if that's not possible.

In the years since then, I've perfected the art of making the house safe for his anniversary. One of the biggest jobs is going around the house and packing up the family pictures. I guess it was because Dad was in a lot of them, but they always seemed to get damaged on the anniversary. I learned by the third year to take them down.

That's what I was doing when I heard the doorbell. I opened it on my way past, my arms full of picture frames. Rosalie was standing there, and fuck, as nice as it always was to see her, I really did not have the time or patience to deal with any shit today and well, she hadn't really been in a perfect mood since Mike's party.

"Rosalie, as much as I would love to battle it out with you today, now's not really a good time," I said, turning my back on her and using my foot to push the door closed, not really caring if I seemed rude or not. She caught it before it shut and followed me in, looking around.

"Are you moving again?" she asked, glancing at the stack of picture frames that I was placing in a box in the corner of the room.

"We usually last longer than a month in one place," I said.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Not that it's really your business, but I'm anniversary-proofing the house," I said, grabbing the box and going upstairs to get the pictures from the hall. "And I have a lot of shit to do, and not a lot of time."

"Can I help?" she asked. I glanced at her, suspicious for a moment before shrugging.

"Sure. Take down all of the pictures from the hall here; I'm going to get the ones from my mom's room," I said, sitting the box down and walking away. When I came back, she had already taken them down and stacked them neatly in the box. I put Mom's pictures in and then picked the box up, taking it to my room and sitting it in the back of my closet before turning around to see that Rosalie had followed me in.

"You guys sure do anniversaries differently than anyone I've ever seen," she said, smirking. I sighed.

"This isn't that kind of anniversary, Rosalie," I said.

"What is it, then?"

"My dad died seven years ago today, okay?" I said, not looking at her as I knelt on the floor, reaching under my bed for the box of plastic glasses. Mom hated them. She said that they were tacky, and if we were going to use glasses like civilized people, they were going to be made out of glass. But the problem with glass is... it breaks. And the problem with broken glass is that it cuts people. So once a year, the plastic cups get dragged out.

"I'm sorry," I heard Rosalie say quietly. She sounded uncomfortable. Good. She shouldn't be here. She didn't need to see what was going to happen.

"It's not like you killed him," I said, finally locating the glasses and standing up to take them down to the kitchen.

"Emmett—"

"Why are you here, Rosalie?" I asked, starting to lose my patience. I only ask that people leave me alone one day out of the year. I didn't go out looking for her, and she hasn't seemed to be missing me over the past few weeks, so why the hell was she showing up now, of all times?

"Yeah. I guess Lauren wouldn't like it, would she?" she spat.

"You know, as attractive as jealousy always is," I said sarcastically, "that's not really your business."

"Alice and I saw her, you know, the other night. She was at the movies with Tyler," she said. I laughed.

"I really can't find it in me to care," I said before going into the garage to grab another box for the glasses.

"You don't care that they were all over each other?"

"Not really. Lauren can do whatever the hell she wants," I said, going to the pantry and reaching up to pull the liquor bottles out and put them on a lower shelf. Mom was quite a bit shorter than me, and one year she pulled one of the shelves down trying to get to the liquor. Luckily it was just the shelf that held cereal and shit. Still, it didn't need to happen again. I looked in the fridge to check if there was juice or soda or anything to mix the liquor with and cursed when I didn't find anything. I could usually trick Mom into drinking less if the alcohol could be diluted.

"So did you guys break up?" Rosalie asked, following me to the front door.

"What?" I asked, confused as I grabbed my keys.

"You and Lauren, did you break up?"

"Not that it's your business, again, but we were never going out," I said, listening to make sure she shut the door as she followed me out.

"Oh. I just assumed, after the party—"

"Yeah, well, everyone has to learn what assuming does sometime," I said, opening the driver's side door and getting in. She opened the passenger's side door and climbed in, shutting the door. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going with you," she said.

"Rosalie," I said quietly, breathing hard through my nose to try to stay calm. "I don't think you're really understanding just how bad of a day this is for this shit."

"So where are we going?" she asked, and for a moment I was struck by how completely our roles had reversed.

"The store," I answered shortly. She nodded.

"So..." she said after a few minutes. "Why didn't you tell me that you and Lauren weren't dating?"

"Why didn't you ask?" I countered. Because I'm Emmett Fucking McCarty, and I'm a stupid bastard. Or at least, that's what her answer led me to believe.

"Because I didn't want to hear that you really had chosen Lauren Mallory over me," she said quietly. Jesus fucking Christ, I couldn't deal with this today. I could point out at least ten different reasons why this whole thing was ridiculous. Instead I took the spiteful route.

"So your pride was so badly hurt that you took the first opportunity you could find to hurt me back?" I demanded. Her eyes widened.

"What?"

"If I had been dating Lauren, don't you think it would have hurt me to find out she went out with Tyler? But I guess that didn't matter as long as you could say in your own little backhanded way that I should have picked you," I spat. She shook her head.

"I didn't think—"

"No," I said, parking the car and killing the ignition. "You didn't."

Mad as I was, and stressed out as I was when I looked at my watch and saw that Mom would be home in an hour and a half, I still went around the Jeep and helped Rosalie down.

Because I'm Emmett Fucking McCarty, and I'm a fucking gentleman.

That, and I didn't have time to take her to the hospital and still get home in time to finish packing up the fucking glasses.

---

RPOV

I watched as Emmett packed up the last of the kitchen glasses, his back to me. He hadn't said anything since we had arrived at the grocery store, and I couldn't think of anything to say that would make the situation better.

Nanuq rested her great head on my knee, looking up at me with big, sympathetic eyes. Even the dog seemed to know I had fucked up. She whined.

"Get out!" Emmett suddenly commanded and I looked up to see that he had turned around and was looking in my direction. My breath caught in my throat and I jumped up as he stalked towards me, panic setting in. I tensed reflexively, squeezing my eyes shut.

But nothing ever happened. I heard another low whine from Nanuq and then the storm door slid open and then shut again. I opened my eyes to see the dog on the other side of the glass and Emmett looking at me in surprise.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he asked, but despite the strong words, he sounded concerned. I blushed.

"Nothing," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady, despite the fact that my heart had yet to slow and my tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of my mouth. He looked from me to Nanuq and then back again, comprehension dawning on his face.

"Fuck, Rosalie, I'm not going to throw you out like a dog," he said, shaking his head.

"I didn't... I just thought that you were..." How could I explain what I had thought? I wasn't even aware of thinking it. One minute, Emmett was coming towards me and the next it was Royce. I blinked a few times, willing away the tears that always came with those moments when the memories snuck up on me.

"Rosalie?" Emmett asked. I shook my head, sitting back down and looking at the table. I heard chair legs scraping against the floor. "Hey." I looked up at the soft word and saw Emmett sitting beside me, leaning in, trying like hell by the looks of it to meet my eyes. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," I said. "I should be going home. I'm sorry for bothering you and everything." I stood up, leaving the kitchen as short as I could without actually running. I almost made it to the front door when I felt Emmett's hand close around my wrist, making me stop.

"Do you really want to leave?" he asked quietly. I shook my head. "Then stay," he said, and it was so simple, so easy, that I was sure for a minute I had to have heard wrong until he turned and lead me up the stairs, back to his room.

"Is your mom going to wonder why all of the pictures and everything are gone?" I asked, hoping to get him to talk about anything besides where the conversation had been going.

"No, she's... She's kind of the reason I take them down," he said, stretching out on his bed, his back against the headboard. "Generally, she's got it pretty together, you know? But on dad's anniversary, it all just kind of goes to hell."

"I can't really blame her," I said. "It has to be hard on her."

"I've never really blamed her for it. I just worry about her. I mean, the way she moves around, even if I go to a college near her, chances are she won't stay there. So after this year, I'm not sure I'll be able to be around to keep an eye on her," he said. His eyes met mine and I think it was the first time I saw him look truly sad. I hadn't known him long, but it still seemed like such a foreign expression on him. He always had this air of casualty, a somehow devilishly innocent look... To see him worried, or upset, or whatever this was, looked strange.

"Are you going to sit down, or just stand there all night staring at me?" he asked with a slight smile.

"All night?"

"Well, it's kind of either now or never. If you don't go before my mom gets here, she may catch you trying to leave later and make you cuddle with her while she tells you stories about my dad."

"Really?"

"Happened every year until I was sixteen," he said. "That's when I finally perfected preparing the house and just started hiding out in my room. So, are you going to sit down and hide out with me, or take your chances at escaping?"

"I'll stay," I said quickly, sitting down beside him. I didn't really think about it. I just knew that I didn't want to be away from him right now.

---

EPOV

"Get out!" I yelled at Nan as she whined, turning to put her outside. She whined again and tried to pull away as I hooked my fingers through her collar, but left without a fight once the door was open. God knows, Mom wouldn't need any help tearing up the house tonight.

I turned back around after shutting the door to see Rosalie standing, her hands formed into fists by her sides, her entire body tensed, eyes screwed shut. After a moment, they opened again, although she still seemed on edge.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" I asked, kicking myself almost immediately for the way the words came out. But Jesus fucking Christ, what was going on? She acted like... "Fuck, Rosalie, I'm not going to throw you out like a dog."

"I didn't... I just thought you were..."

What the hell had that been? Even as Rosalie sat beside me, making conversation about my mom, I couldn't stop wondering. I wasn't sure if I was blowing it up in my mind, or if it really was as strange as it seemed to me. This day wasn't a good one for me to judge things like that. Even my own reactions to things were off.

We were quiet when my mom's car pulled into the driveway and I strained to hear her movement through the house. She definitely stopped in the kitchen, and then it sounded like she went to the living room for a minute before I heard her bedroom door shut down the hall from mine.

"Well, looks like you're stuck here," I said. Rosalie shrugged.

"That's okay, I guess."

"You guess?" I asked, grinning.

"It could be worse."

"Why Rosalie Hale, I do believe you're flirting with me," I teased her. She blushed. She fucking blushed.

"Right. That would be too easy," I conceded after a moment. She rolled her eyes. "But still, it's kind of late for you to play hard to get," I added. "I mean, after all, you did say that you wanted me to choose you."

"I did not say that," she scoffed. "I said that I didn't want to think that you chose Lauren Mallory over me. And that was out of concern for your own tastes."

"Yeah, that makes sense," I said, laughing. She glared at me. "For the record, though, I would choose you." She stared at me, her eyes wide, and I smiled, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. "Over all of them. Every time."

Because I'm Emmett Fucking McCarty, and I couldn't be any fucking smoother if I were Kellan Lutz.

"God, you're such a fucking cheeseball," she said, laughing.

"You love it," I said. She shook her head. "No, you definitely do. Don't lie."

She started to laugh but it was cut short when a loud shattering sound cut through the air. I sighed, sliding down to the foot of the bed and walking towards the door.

"I'll be right back."

---

Well. This was new.

I've seen my mom break a lot of things on this day throughout the years. She has such skill for it that we've had to replace two refrigerators and a dryer.

But this. This was almost impressive. I didn't even know it was possible to throw a plastic glass so hard that it breaks a glass shower door.

My mom was on her knees amidst the glass, hunched over with her head in her hands. How the fuck was she this smashed this fast? Walking carefully into the bathroom, the smell hit me hard and I realized just how she had managed it: the glass had been full of pure, undiluted, eighty proof vodka.

She looked up when the glass crunched under my shoes, and instantly started crying harder.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said, her words slurred and muffled behind her hand. I shook my head, grabbing a hand towel off of the sink. She tried to stand up and I put a hand on her shoulder, keeping her down.

"Stay there. Were you already sitting when the glass broke?" I asked, using the towel to gather up the shards scattered around her. She nodded. Well, at least that was something. She hadn't fallen down onto any of it. When I had finally cleared the glass from around her I hoisted her to her feet and started helping her back into her bedroom.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Don't worry about it, Mom," I said dutifully. I won't deny that I hated seeing her this, but that wasn't what she was apologizing for. She was apologizing because I had to clean up after her, and that I didn't mind.

"You take care of me," she observed, and now I couldn't tell if she was simply more drunk than I had thought, or about to pass out. "Your father would be so proud." She squinted at me for a moment before adding, "You look so much like him, you know."

"Yeah, Mom," I said, helping her into her bed and covering her up. "Try to get some sleep, okay? You'll feel better in the morning."

"Thank you, honey," she mumbled. I was walking to the door to go get the broom and the toolbox to take the rest of the shattered door off of its tracks when she spoke again. "Emmett, honey?"

"Yeah?"

"Did something break?" she asked and I paused, staring into the darkness of her room.

"No, Mom. Everything's okay."

---

By the time I finally got the bathroom cleaned up and the shower door removed and taken out to the garage, I had been out of my room for a little over an hour. I half expected Rosalie to be gone when I got back. Instead, I found her rummaging through my bookshelf.

"Something interest you?" I asked and she jumped, spinning around, still clutching the book that she had been looking at. "Other than me, of course. That one's a given," I said, grinning.

"The Last Vampire?" she asked, holding up the book. I nodded. "I didn't think you read much."

"I read things that entertain me."

"It's a pretty serious book, for you anyway, isn't it?" she asked. I wasn't sure if she was trying to offend me or if it was in her nature to do it accidentally.

"I like the main character," I said. She raised an eyebrow. "She's strong, and she doesn't take anyone's shit. But she's also compassionate," I said. "She has a strong sense of justice, and she doesn't harm those that haven't wronged her."

"I never saw her like that," she said, turning the book over in her hands to scan the back cover.

"No?" I asked, amused. I wondered how Rosalie couldn't see the parallels between her and the character.

"No. She's wrathful, and arrogant," she said. "She believes herself infallible, and yet she's brought down by something small, her love for a man. How strong could she be if she allowed that to happen?"

"You think love is a small thing?"

"I think love is a temporary thing, and not worth throwing your life away over," she clarified. I laughed.

"You are probably the most cynical person I've ever met in my life," I said, taking the book from her and reshelving it.

"No, I'm the most realistic person you've met," she corrected me, smirking.

I wanted to ask her what had made her so cynical – or realistic, as she put it. I was pretty sure most girls her age spent a large part of their time imagining when they would fall in love, get married, have kids; all that shit.

But honestly, I was too tired to deal with it, and knowing Rosalie, I wouldn't get a straight answer anyway.

"You exhaust me," I informed her, collapsing onto my bed.

"It's only seven," she said. "You're getting old, Grandpa."

"Your second-hand cynicism makes me feel like I'm ninety-four," I informed her, throwing my arm over my eyes to block out the overhead light. She didn't answer me, and after a second I felt the bed shift as she sat down.

"Hey Emmett?" she asked after a second.

"Hmm?"

"Are you going to sleep?"

"Probably."

"Can I borrow a pair of sweatpants or something?"

"You would be swimming in my sweatpants," I informed her.

"I don't want to sleep in jeans," she said, poking my leg.

"You're going to sleep, Grandma?" I asked, smiling as I uncovered my eyes to look at her. She rolled her eyes. "You know, one day those are going to stick that way."

"Come on, just let me borrow some pants," she said, poking me again. I groaned, standing up and walking to my closet, pulling out a pair of sweatpants that I knew had a drawstring. She was still going to look like MC Hammer in them, though. Heh. That could be funny.

I tossed them to her and pointed to my bathroom door, collapsing on the bed once she had left to change. Fuck, it's been a long day.

Every year I wonder if I should resent my mom for her behaviour. On one level, I feel like she's been robbing me of my chances to mourn my father's death since he passed away, but then I feel shitty for even considering that and I always push the thought out as quickly as it arrives.

I looked up as the bathroom door opened and Rosalie emerged, tying the drawstring on my pants as tight as it would go. I was right. They had become MC Hammer pants. Add to that the fact that there was about five inches of fabric under her feet, and well— she looked pretty damned adorable, actually. I had almost forgotten how much I liked seeing girls in my clothes. The first time I even saw it wasn't that long ago. The girl I went to junior prom with had put my shirt on to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, back in our last house, when I didn't have my own.

While I had been right about the pants, I was wrong about it being amusing. It was nothing short of torturous. And she was going to be sleeping like that. Presumably in my bed. Mere fucking inches from me. Jesus fucking Christ. I should have let her go home.

But for once, I didn't want to be alone on this day, and as she settled herself onto the bed next to me, I had never been more grateful to be near someone. She looked at me with those fucking big blue eyes, almost expectantly, and I wanted to kiss her – goodnight, good morning, hello, goodbye, it didn't matter – but I couldn't do it. I was once more frozen.

One day I would work up the nerve, but for now she had successfully changed me from Emmett Fucking McCary, ladies' man extraordinaire into Emmett Fucking McCarty, nervous fumbling fourteen-year-old.

Fucking talent.

---

AN: I am actually fairly happy with this chapter. Go me!

Were you happy with it? You should totally drop me a few lines in a review, telling me what you liked. I love to hear which parts people enjoyed. :D

The book discussed, "The Last Vampire," is by Christopher Pike, and it has been a few years since I read it, but both Rosalie and Emmett's opinions on the main character are things I remember thinking about her as I read it. I remember it being a very good book, so I would recommend it, I guess.

/bribes reviewers with many sweet nothings