Fearfully and Wonderfully

by staringatthesky

Because when you love someone, nothing else matters. Eleanor McCarty went out fishing and got a whole lot more than she bargained for. A bear, an angel and a trip through the hellfire later she's finding out there's a big, wide world that's way beyond her simple dreams and imaginings. As for the angel - she's discovering a whole lot too.

11. That Kind of Person

Chapter 11 – That Kind of Person

Rosalie avoids me for days, keeping herself locked away in her room or in the bathroom. Her silence cloaks the house in gloom, and I find myself shrivelling under the oppressive weight of it. The memory of her lips on mine fades from a pleasure into an almost unbearable ache of regret.

You fucked it all up, Nell.

I go hunting with Edward in the twilight, and as I finish the deer I'm draining I sit back on my heels and say softly, "I thought maybe I might take off for a bit."

Edward is already shaking his head before the words are spoken. "You don't have to do that. Rosalie will get over herself."

"It's not her fault. I'm the one who kissed her and made her feel so uncomfortable that she can't even bear to be in the same room as me." I gloomily start hollowing out a grave for the deer. "I thought it would be for the best if I went somewhere else for a while, let the dust settle."

"Go where?" Edward demands. "Eleanor, you're not exactly safe to be out in the human world yet. If you go out on your own, what do you think is going to happen?"

I wince. "I know, I know. But…maybe I could head up to Alaska? Search out those cousins of yours?"

Edward kneels beside me, helping scoop dirt. "I'd much prefer you stay right here with us."

I bump him affectionately with my shoulder. "You're one of the good ones, you know that? It's not as though I really want to leave, but I can't…I can't stay here. Not with things as they are. I can't be around her when she thinks I'm disgusting."

"But she doesn't…" Edward checks himself, before he goes on carefully. "Rosalie doesn't know what she thinks."

I drop the carcass into the hole we've made. "It doesn't matter. I was an idiot to kiss her in the first place! But I did, and so it's up to me to fix it – you were all happy enough before I showed up, if I head out on my own then it'll just go back to the way it was. Easiest for everyone that way."

"It's not though." Edward tosses his deer after mine and glares at me almost angrily. "You've changed everything! It's better now – for all of us, but most of all for Rosalie! You say you love her, and yet you're just going to walk away?"

"I'm not just walking away!" I say, stung. "If I thought there was any point in staying, I'd never leave! But it's hardly walking away when she's the one who turned her back first."

"I wouldn't have expected you to give up so easily."

"Yeah well, maybe you don't know me that well."

Edward snorts, and without another word he turns and runs back towards the house. Left alone I finish covering the deer, stamping down on the mound of loose dirt before I head glumly back towards the house. I pause at the edge of the yard, hearing Edward and Rosalie's voices beginning to rise.

"Get out of my room!"

"You need to stop this pointless brooding and…"

"Oh, that's rich coming from YOU, the king of moping and lamentation!"

"You…ugh." I can almost hear Edward grinding his teeth. "Call me whatever names you want. I didn't come here to argue with you – I came here to tell you that Eleanor is planning on leaving, and if you don't want her to go you might want to go and talk to her."

"Leaving?" Rosalie says sharply. "What do you mean? Where would she go? Why would she do that?"

"Why do you think? You won't even look at her – she thinks you find her contemptible."

Rosalie's voice drops. "She kissed me."

"And do you find that so offensive? So much that you'll reject her completely?" Edward demands. "Because if that's the case, then perhaps it would be better for everyone if Eleanor does leave. You're under no obligation to reciprocate her feelings, but she doesn't deserve your disgust or hatred for who she is."

"I don't feel like that," Rosalie says.

"Then tell her that," Edward says, more gently. "Tell her how you feel – or she'll leave and you'll lose her."

Not wanting either of them to know that I've heard anything, I fade silently back into the forest and wait a few minutes before approaching again. Whistling carelessly I raise a hand in greeting to Rosalie, who is standing at her window, and lope across the yard to the barn to check on the drying hide.

"Edward says you're leaving."

I turn to find Rosalie in the barn doorway, her arms folded tightly around herself.

"I was thinking about it. Maybe go and see a bit of the world?" I sit down on an old haybale, leaning back against the wall, eyeing her carefully. "I thought maybe me hanging around here isn't the best thing."

"You shouldn't have kissed me," she says abruptly.

"I shouldn't have," I agree. "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"Well, you did."

I look away. "I'm sorry for that. But you don't have to worry about it – it was a silly impulse and it doesn't mean anything."

Rosalie's face is tight and tense. "You'd kiss anyone then? I'm nothing special?"

Always so contrary!

I open my mouth to make a joke of it, to tease her out of her mood and put the incident behind us. To make her believe me when I say it doesn't matter. But it's no use. I can't pretend to anything I'm not, and I'm right now I'm tired of hiding. Tired of lying, tired of pretending, tired of feeling shame about who am I.

"I kissed you because I wanted to," I say. "I kissed you because I love you."

"Well, you shouldn't!" In a bound Rosalie is in front of me, her beautiful face furious as she looms over me. "What do you even mean? What kind of a person…"

"Don't!" I blindly hold out my hands to ward her off. "Don't say anything more! I know it was a stupid thing to do and I'm sorry I did it, but I don't need to hear about how much you despise me for it!"

"I don't despise you!"

"You won't even look at me!" I rake a hand through my hair. "But you won't have to put up with it for much longer – I'll leave, and you can pretend that nothing ever happened."

"I don't want to pretend that nothing happened!" Rosalie's voice is shaking. "I don't…I wish you hadn't done that! I can't stop thinking about it! Because I don't despise you and I didn't hate it…I liked it when you kissed me, and I can't look at you because when I do all I want is for you to do it again!"

For a moment we both freeze, eyes locked, the air between us almost crackling. Then Rosalie comes closer, her golden eyes burning.

"You shouldn't have kissed me," she whispers, and then her lips come down on mine.

Holy Mother of God!

She's tentative at first, kisses slow and soft and lips all sweetness on mine. But then she parts her lips a little and I feel her tongue, and I half moan into her mouth as my hands tangle in her hair to hold her where I want to. It's everything I always imagined, but so much better… She kisses me with more confidence and I bring her down onto my lap, kissing the line of her jaw before meeting her mouth again. Rosalie shivers in my arms, and I feel her hands slip across my back as she presses closer.

"Tell me you won't leave." Rosalie breaks away, breathing fast.

"Never," I say hoarsely, curving my hand around her face and brushing a thumb across her lip. "Not as long as you want me to stay."

"I want…"

But then the sound of a car approaching can be heard, and without finishing her sentence Rosalie tears herself free of my arms. She's standing six feet away in an instant, smoothing her hair down and straightening her clothes, and when the Cadillac pulls into the other end of the barn and Carlisle and Esme climb out she greets them with casual grace.

"Hello you two!" I see the quick look of relief on Esme's face as she sees Rosalie out of her room and smiling. "Rosalie, you would have loved the film this evening! You simply must go and see it before the showings end; I'd be happy to sit through it again with you if Edward isn't interested. The costuming was simply fabulous! I'm sorry you'll miss out Ellie sweetheart, but it won't be too much longer before your control is up to the challenge. You're doing very well!"

Carlisle reaches into the car and emerges with a stack of books, handing one to Rosalie. "We went to the bookstore before the film too, here's yours Rosalie. I'm going to take these others into Edward."

"We also went to the post office, and there's another catalogue," Esme tells Rosalie. "We can go through it together if you like. Eleanor, you too."

I wave my hand. I love that Esme always tries to include me, but I don't care a whit about looking through clothing catalogues. As long as I'm staying home invisible to society I'm perfectly satisfied with the sailor pants and shirts that she's sewn for me, and my battered overalls.

"I'll be in soon," Rosalie says.

Esme glances from Rosalie to me and back again with a faintly puzzled air. Rosalie flips through her book and doesn't meet her eyes, and after a moment Esme just gives me a small smile and she and Carlisle head back towards the house.

Left alone, I sit silently while Rosalie leafs more slowly through the remainder of her book. It's only when we hear Carlisle and Esme at the door of the house and the general chatter begin as Edward greets them that Rosalie lays down her book and looks at me again.

"You promise you won't leave?"

I want to say yes. I want to wrap her in my arms and kiss her face and neck and hands and tell her that I love her, that I will be here waiting for her every day for the rest of forever. But I can't forget the way she tore herself away from me when she heard the car approaching, or the look on her face when she did it.

"I don't want to go anywhere," I say slowly. "But I'm not going to make any promises that maybe I can't keep."

"Fine. Do whatever you want." Rosalie snatches up her book and flounces towards the door, stopping short as I reach out and grab the back of her dress.

"Stop doing that!" I say in frustration. "Losing your temper and storming away…have you ever considered just listening occasionally? Maybe even, oh, I don't know… talking about whatever's bothering you?!"

"And say what?" Rosalie turns, quick enough that I haven't released her clothes and so she's held against me with my arm across her back, her breasts against my ribs and her face tipped back to stare at me wildly. "I don't want this! I'm not that kind of person! But you come near me and…it's like…it's like I'm a kindled fire and you're a match, and if I let you…let myself…then it's all going to blaze and I won't be able to…to make any of it stop…and then I see the way you smile at me and…it doesn't matter, none of it matters except…oh Eleanor…"

And she drops her book with a thud and kisses me again with a wild desperation that is both exhilarating and exquisite. There is nothing tentative now, she kisses me fiercely and aggressively, and the heat of it arrows straight down in between my legs and my whole body burns. Rosalie drops her face to my throat and kisses the hollow of it, then buries her face in my neck and bites, and I shudder as I tighten my arms around her to hold her closer. Then she pulls my face down to hers and finds my mouth again, and there is nothing for me but a dizzying euphoria and overwhelming desire.

"No…stop!" Rosalie wrenches herself backwards and shakes her head. "This is exactly what…oh, I don't care, I…" She lifts a shaking hand to touch my lip, which feels hot and swollen. " What are you doing to me…" and she leans back towards me.

This time it's me who steps back. "No." I take her hands, caressing them as I wrap my fingers around them and raise her knuckles to my mouth for a kiss. "I can't. But please, please let me talk to you and explain."

Rosalie's face is an impassive mask, but she doesn't pull her hands away. I kiss them again, and then still holding them I look down at her.

"I want you," I say quietly. "I do, more than I can say. But I heard what you said, Rosalie. I don't want this. I'm not that kind of person. That's what you said. And that's okay, but the thing is…I am that kind of person. And I do want this."

"I'm sorry," Rosalie whispers.

"It's all right. I get it – and it really is okay. I'm not going to ask you for anything you're not ready and willing and wanting to give." I take a deep breath. "But the thing is, I love you. I've always loved you; right from the very first moment I saw you I have loved you in some crazy unexplainable way that just fills my whole world. I never thought that you would love me back in the same way, but that was still okay with me – just to be near you would have been enough. So you see, I can live with unrequited love…but I can't let you take that love and make it into something ugly or shameful." I press my lips against her fingers again, and then release her hands. "I love you, and I want you, and kissing you like that was everything I've ever dreamed of…but I won't be your dirty little secret. I won't be with you if it means you're going to hate yourself and hate me for being the cause of it."

"I don't hate you." Rosalie's voice is low. "I don't hate what just happened between us – but it terrifies me. You've been honest with me and I think you deserve the same, but right now I don't know what the truth is about the way I feel. There's too much, and it's all so conflicting and confusing I don't even know where to begin."

I let myself sit back down on the haybale, and smile at her gently. "Well, why don't you try? Start anywhere, and see what comes."

Rosalie stoops down to pick up her book, brushing it meticulously free of dirt so she doesn't have to look at me as she searches for words. "I was angry when you kissed me. Because I thought I should have been horrified, or offended, or disgusted…and I wasn't. I liked it, and even though I felt as if it was wrong…I wanted you to do it again. And I was angry at myself for feeling that way, and angry at you for throwing my ordered world into chaos." She looks at me briefly, with large, pained eyes. "I don't want to want you, Eleanor. Not just because you're a girl either - I don't want to feel this way about anyone."

I nod but don't say anything, and a moment later she goes on.

"But then Edward told me you were leaving, and it felt like the ground beneath me was suddenly gone. I don't know what it is that I feel for you…but I know I can't be without you."

"Oh Rosa," I say tenderly. I reach impulsively towards her, but she takes a quick step back and holds up a hand.

"I can't lose you – but I don't know if I can be what you want me to be either."

"I'm not asking you for anything."

"But you do want something from me," Rosalie says. "You want me, and even though I kissed you back and…but it's all wrong. You're a girl! It's not how it works – girls grow up and marry men so they can have babies. Not…this."

I can't help a slight chuckle at her naivety. "That's the usual way of things, I'll grant you that. But it's not the only way. A woman and a woman, a man and a man…there have always been people like me, and there's more to sex than making babies."

"Well, I know that! God knows Carlisle and Esme never stop, and there'll never be any babies for them! And, what was done to me…" Rosalie breaks off as a shudder of revulsion ripples through her, and then eyes me uncertainly. "You've always felt like this?"

"Never this much. Never anything like this. I mean, in my human life, if I was looking – well, it was always girls that caught my eye. But the way my heart burns for you…this is new."

"And that's part of what frightens me," Rosalie says quietly. "You know what you think and what you feel and what you want…and I don't know anything. You'll think me ignorant – and I suppose I am – but until you kissed me, the very idea of people who felt like you was completely unknown to me. And I would never have even dreamed that I could feel the…the… desire…I felt for you when you did it." She hesitates. "I've told you about the very particular way I was raised. My parents and their ambitions, and their very set idea of what my life was supposed to be like. Everything about me, from the way I looked to the way I behaved, was scrutinised and criticised and moulded to fit into the future they were planning for me. There was no room for rebellion and no tolerance of any dissension."

I can't help but think of my human family, and the uncomplicated love and affection I had been lucky enough to be raised with. In my big and generous family my oddities and quirks were just a part of the overall picture of our lives, and even if they didn't understand they had always accepted me as I was and loved me anyway.

"You've made me question everything," Rosalie says. "You've opened my eyes to possibilities that I never knew existed and feelings that I didn't know I could feel…but it's all far outside the way I've lived up until now, and I don't know what to do with that."

"If we were still human, even if we'd been dancing and you were looking at me like you did, I wouldn't have kissed you," I told her. "I wouldn't have been able to expose myself to the risk. But everything about you calls to me, and we're not human anymore, and those rules don't seem so important."

She smiles a little sadly. "Perhaps not. But they're still something I've been holding on to, and I don't know what happens if I let them go."

"You could be happy. I could make you happy."

Rosalie drifts close enough to touch me, her fingertips brushing across my cheek. "You do make me happy. I may not know anything else, and I can't tell you where I go from here…but I know that my life here has been better since you were part of it. Please don't leave now."

She turns away then, and I let her go. This is enough for now. I love her enough to give her whatever space she needs, and even if she never turns to me fully it won't matter. I'm hers, in whatever way she needs, for as long as we both endure.