I had every intention to stop writing after my last story, but this story was just knocking on the door to my mind and I had to write it!

Growing up with Twilight, I immediately was drawn to Rosalie's character. Maybe I saw myself in her in the way she was misunderstood and mistaken by the narrator's perspective, always an after thought or foot note - because she was beautiful she couldn't be anything else. I found that Rosalie's story was deep context to why she was all at once enchanted and repulsed by Bella's humanity and Edward's love for her.

I found that Rosalie's own experience of beauty was full of duplicity as a blessing and curse, and her own experience of physical love obviously couldn't have come out of nowhere given her past. I wanted to fill in the space and explain beyond surface level reasoning of a limited perspective narrator why Rosalie and Emmett's relationship looks like it does and how it got there in the first place.

Because I saw so much depth in Rosalie, I was always very frustrated at the way Stephenie Meyer treated Rosalie's character as shallow and one-dimensional, but from the limited perspectives of Bella and Edward (in Midnight Sun), I understood why she had to write her the way she did. With that said, the older I get the more I realized how modern Rosalie and Emmett's love story truly is and what all they would've had to navigate that wasn't really talked about in the 1930s, and still is just recently starting to be discussed.

I see how the characteristics of Rosalie and Emmett's relationship are easily accepted by Bella and Edward because of particularly Bella's limited perspective of Rosalie and Emmett's own lives and experiences. Even after Rosalie opened up to Bella in Eclipse, and in the outtakes Emmett explains his transformation and perspective of Rosalie, Bella's response is still very removed. However, I think Stephenie Meyer left this story open to get filled by our imaginations! She gave us so many golden lines to play with so I'm going to try to keep this as canon as possible, just fill in those gaps!

I've loved reading Emmett's transformation stories and his early relationship with Rosalie throughout my time on this site, and thank so many of them for inspiring me to finally write my own considering it's been toying in my mind for more than 10 years! It will begin with Emmett's transformation day and span through their early relationship.

Enjoy!

Breath of Life

I was looking for a breath of life
A little touch of heavenly light
But all the choirs in my head sang no
To get a dream of life again
A little of vision of the start and the end

But all the choirs in my head sang no

Carlisle – Spring, 1935

I sat on the front porch next to Esme, with my arm around her shoulders as she read Emily Dickinson aloud.

Edward was on the porch swing, twisting together the stems of two wildflowers mindlessly listening.

It was a beautiful spring day, and with the sun high in the sky, we'd all stayed home today.

I watched the sun sparkle off Esme's gorgeous skin and found myself staring, enamored by her beauty.

"What is it?" She asked with a little smile, her gorgeous eyes on my face.

It had been a while since I'd seen her smile.

Rosalie had left two months ago, and Edward and I knew what she'd left to do.

She had a mission, a calling, and a vengeance.

I couldn't bring myself to tell Esme that Rosalie had left to kill her own killers, gutting our newly minted family and leaving us all a bit emptied inside.

The worst part was, after she'd called just two days ago to tell me she'd done it, by the sound of her voice, I didn't know if she'd ever return.

I knew that she'd gotten Edward to explain to her about the Volturi. If she wanted to end her existence, she now knew the means in which to do so…

It broke my heart to think of her and it crushed my soul to know how Esme missed her.

Rosalie represented the darkness and selfishness in what I did to Edward and Esme. I had changed them to be like me thus extending their existence for my own companionship and for my own loneliness.

I'd seen it as a waste to let her die as she had, dehumanized in the streets – and had changed her out of pity. But, Rosalie thought that if her body had been found, they would have gotten caught and the law would have dealt with them all. Their names would've been desecrated and their reputations forever would be that of sick murderers and rapists.

She was idealistic in this thought of course, as she later found out her attackers had paid the police force not to investigate her disappearance too extensively.

Her disappearance was eventually ruled as a suicide when Royce King II mysteriously discovered an unidentifiable body of a girl about Rosalie's age a few days afterward. The body was too badly disfigured to identify, but she had golden blonde hair and Royce had provided it just to appease Rosalie's parents. With perfect theatrics and preserving his good name, he spun an elaborate tale of Rosalie's madness and jealousy leading up to their wedding that had caused her to finally kill herself. Rosalie's parents hadn't asked too many questions. They were embarrassed to have a daughter that had "gone mad" with woman's troubles and they'd even cursed her for disgracing their family legacy with mental illness.

Everything the name Rosalie Hale had meant before had died with her. Her reputation had died with her. Rosalie Hale was no longer a lost symbol of beauty, grace, poise, and perfection.

She was forever a symbol of madness and shame.

It was like a second death when Rosalie read about it in the paper.

That's when Rosalie's plan for vengeance gained its legs.

I thought that perhaps if she was able to kill her own rapists and killers she would find peace in her immortality, but maybe she had found that after her vengeance her existence had become pointless.

My heart broke at this thought.

"Rosalie?" Edward asked aloud, but his tone was that of surprise and even concern, not a response to my thoughts.

He shot to his feet, looking out on the horizon, hanging around the column of the porch.

"Rosalie!" Esme stood excitedly, clutching the book of poems to her chest as she looked toward the point of Edward's gaze.

I as well followed his eyes to a sparkling glint that swiftly turned into the face of my prodigal daughter.

But, she wasn't alone.

"Oh my God…" Edward breathed and both his hands came to his mouth.

"What is she doing?!" Esme puzzled frantically.

"She's with a human!" Edward gasped, seeming overwhelmed by her frantic thoughts.

Edward's eyes seemed to dart over the pages of her thoughts visible only to him.

"She wants you to change him!" Edward bluntly betrayed her thoughts as she approached and my heart went dark.

"Oh, Carlisle..." Esme shook her head and my heart sank.

Never in a million years would I have even dreamt this scenario.

"Carlisle!" Rosalie shrieked, approaching with blinding speed – pushing her maximum speed with adrenaline. "You have to help me!"

As she came up the porch, Edward opened the front door - hurrying us all inside. Edward and Esme's eyes flickered with wanton bloodlust as they passed in a whir, but Rosalie held him protectively and possessively, hissing at them to control themselves.

The man in Rosalie's arms was indisputably taking his dying breaths. His heart was struggling; blood was flowing like water out of the many gashes and bites on his body and down Rosalie's arms in grotesque streams.

Animal attack.

"It was a bear." Edward clarified the thoughts.

"Please Carlisle, you have to save him." Rosalie pleaded with me.

"Rosalie…" I began, still in shock that she was standing in front of me – let alone in the midst of the scenario at hand.

"Change him, Carlisle…. For me!" Rosalie was intensely impatient as she made it into the kitchen with him.

"Rosalie, no way!" Edward accused, trying to keep his voice level. "You're asking a lot of him. We haven't been hunting in a week!"

"I'll do it myself then!" Rosalie shrieked, pushing Edward back with earth-shattering force before collapsing to the kitchen floor with the mutilated and practically dismembered body of a dying man.

"Bite me." Edward seethed, removing himself from an Edward-shaped indention in the wall.

"I will kill you, Edward." Rosalie growled, irrational rage in her eyes. "There's no time for this!"

"You are quite the killer, Rosalie." Edward narrowed his eyes, no doubt referring to her latest digression and extended absence.

Rosalie bared her teeth in a way that suggested she was about to fight him as her body arched over the man's protectively, shielding him.

"Please, you two stop it…" Esme's begging voice came from behind me, her eyes tortured as she danced her gaze between her fighting children.

The dying man looked up at Rosalie with desperate brown eyes, marveling at her existence, but seeming to beg for the solace from pain and suffering that someone so beautiful should promise.

"It's going to be all right." Rosalie swore to him, though her voice shook a little in uncertainty.

"You can't…" Edward began.

"Just tell me how to do it then, Carlisle. I don't want to mess it up." Rosalie requested torturously, cutting him off.

I saw the glimmer of bloodlust in her eyes that she was conquering masterfully but not enough for something like this.

"Rosalie, wait." I cut her off and knelt with her over the man, working quickly, trying to see if there was any chance of survival through medicinal means.

It was just a sheer miracle he was in one piece. Well, sort of one piece.

At first glance, his injuries were intimidating, but I could work quickly.

"Edward…" I began, my voice dark. "Go get the morphine."

"Why?" He questioned.

I knew his question was not for my sake, but for Rosalie's as the two of them glared at one another.

She wouldn't budge. She was too pig headed.

None of us had time for that right now.

"Edward. Please." I changed my tone.

"There's not much time, and I'm going to do everything I can." I told them both, staying steady as I ripped open the man's bloody shirt to expose an array of lacerations.

I am going to do everything I can to save him as a doctor first.

This thought seemed to appease Edward and my words appeased Rosalie.

Edward stalked from the room, turning over his shoulder to glare at Rosalie in challenge once more.

The dying man gritted his teeth at my touch on his left side where a ghastly pattern of gashes that resembled tearing from teeth had begun to clot.

Rosalie had to look away for a second - closing her eyes to make sure he didn't see her instincts in her blackening irises.

Because he'd been on the ground, contaminating materials had entered the wound, and Esme had read the situation so she'd brought me a cleaning agent, some alcohol from under the sink.

I glanced at Rosalie now who knew what to expect and as he gasped at the pain of the alcohol on the wounds, she held him tight hushing him like he was just a nightmare ridden child.

"It's all right. You're going to be all right." Rosalie promised in a tone I'd never heard her use before.

I realized the primary motivation in her eyes was that she hated to see his pain. Her bloodlust was in control for the most part.

He'd been cut through and crushed like he'd been nothing more than a toy for a dog.

I couldn't help but think of Rosalie, and I was filled with a sadness I couldn't shake.

She'd been victim to a different kind of animal, but an animal all the same.

Edward returned to the room with the morphine, sympathizing with my preoccupation and putting his hand on my shoulder.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

I stabbed a syringe into the man's left arm.

Edward brought me exactly the medical supplies I needed. Not only because he knew my thoughts, but because he'd been paying attention to medicinal studies.

The damage to the man in front of me was intimidating even being a doctor as long as I had, and my family tensed at the sight of all the blood.

I noticed Rosalie held her breath as she looked down at the man, trying not to frighten him with her expression.

"D-don't leave." He managed to say in a thick, raspy scratch before taking a pained gasp as I tended to the open wound at his ribs.

"I'm not going to leave you." Rosalie promised with a look in her eyes I could only describe as wonder.

My heart sank as I looked upon Rosalie's distressed features as she spoke shallow comforts to the man in her arms.

Astonishingly, he smiled at her, blood on his lips and a gash that could've taken his left eye clean out of his head. It was so ghastly that it made her clench her jaw, but she smiled back.

I realized I'd never seen her smile.

She was radiant.

Esme dropped to her knees beside Rosalie, looking over her face.

This is the first we'd seen of our prodigal daughter in two months and I studied Rosalie's face as if it had been years because she was a different person today than she'd ever been before.

"Put pressure here…" I told Esme, and Rosalie quickly ripped some of the hem of her dress to give to Esme to tie above my hands.

His stomach was torn into, his chest covered in gashes, and I knew immediately from the way his unmoving legs sprawled on the floor that his spine was broken.

This man's right arm was all but severed at the elbow and his left leg had been bitten all the way through, crushing his femur.

"Angel…" The man mumbled, his eyes rolling back as he lost consciousness.

"No. Stay with me." Rosalie begged, her hands coming to his face and his eyes eventually fluttered and focused on her once more.

"Carlisle, please." She said to me, not breaking eye contact with the man as her fingers traced over his cheek. "He can't die. He has to be okay. He has to be."

I saw the white of his bone under great missing chunks of skin and muscle. It was gruesome, but I couldn't help but picture Rosalie Hale's beaten and bruised body that cold night in Rochester….

I still wondered if I could've saved her, as a doctor, that night. If I'd found her just a little sooner, I would've been able to save her. Her injuries would've been treatable and she would've recovered.

My pity clouded my judgment.

Not even a week ago on our phone call, she plainly voiced her resentment to me over what I'd done to her, and now she asked me to do it again to this unsuspecting man.

I was disgusted with myself and my selfishness, and knew God would judge me for my weakness...

My own need for companionship outweighed my knowledge of the temptations and darkness of this life.

Now, it was much more than my need for companionship. This time it was different… This was playing God, but on someone else's request.

Was it the right thing to do?

Edward, my Adam, what would he think of me as I spawned another?

After Rosalie, I had promised myself never again… Never again would I subject someone to this life.

If this man had any chance, I wanted to preserve that option.

"Carlisle…" Edward stopped my thoughts, compassion on his face as he stood over us, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Rosalie, you know it's natural for him to die…." Edward tried to reason with her. "He's…"

"Edward, for Christ's sake you self-righteous, arrogant reptile…" Rosalie growled in determination, absolutely losing the perfect composure and control she'd maintained for the entirety of her existence.

"You know he's dying, Carlisle!" Rosalie was impatient and panicking. "I'm doing it if you won't."

"Rosalie, you won't be able to live with yourself if you kill him…" Edward told her. "When you kill him."

Edward changed his words and Rosalie snarled at him.

As I worked, Rosalie repositioned the man's head in her lap and a chill ran down my spine.

For the man to be losing consciousness, he made every effort to keep his eyes fixated on her face as he gasped through the bewildering pain.

She trailed her fingers over his cheek sweetly, ducking her head so her lips were at his neck with exaggerated slowness.

Rosalie was barely a newborn vampire herself; she couldn't do this.

As her lips slightly parted, the man's eyes rolled back in his head.

"Rosalie!" Edward read something that panicked him in her thoughts.

"Stop talking! I'm trying to focus!" Rosalie snarled at him, closing her eyes as tight as she gritted her teeth.

"No. You were thinking about…" Edward's eyes seemed to get ten shades darker at even the insinuation of blood.

Rosalie growled protectively.

Every muscle in my body was tensed, ready to swoop in.

"I just have to focus." She furrowed her brow, readying herself again.

No.

She didn't know what she was doing.

"Rosalie… I'm not going to let you do this." I began softly.

She let out a labored scream of sorts like she'd been lifting a heavy weight.

She covered her face with her hands, a tearless sob ripping through her throat.

"Carlisle, please…" Rosalie begged, her eyes wide and desperate. "Carlisle, he can't die... And, I can't do it myself… If you care about my happiness at all…"

"Rosalie, you know that's not fair to him." Edward shot her a threatening glance.

The man coughed up a fountain of blood as Rosalie held him. She hushed him in a hopeless attempt at comfort, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of her dress in a shockingly maternal gesture.

Control began to get harder for the others. Edward had to turn his head and look away with a grimace and Esme covered her mouth.

I worried about Edward. How long had it been since his last human?…

Four years?… Was that enough time?

Rosalie was still barely out from being a newborn at only two years of vampirism, but Rosalie gritted her teeth, remaining steadfast.

He only had a couple minutes - tops.

She brushed his sweaty, dark hair off his face and she tried to comfort him frantically.

"I'm not leaving you." She said soothingly, her voice sounding like honey.

He gasped, choking on the blood from what was no doubt was a collapsed lung.

I continued to work quickly, more quickly than I could in a hospital surrounded by other humans.

"Rosalie... If I can save him..." I asked her even though the likelihood was slim. "As a doctor…"

"Carlisle… I chose my words carefully." Rosalie's eyes were on fire and her chin was low.

"I want you to change him, not save him." Rosalie revealed darkly in a whisper that was filled with shame. "For me."

I looked into Rosalie's tortured eyes willing them to be tortured no longer.

"You can't be serious." Edward protested my thoughts as well as Rosalie's I imagined. "You'd do this to him? Willingly? You hate this life and..."

"Leave us alone, Edward!" Rosalie growled. "This isn't your decision!"

Edward left the room and slammed the door behind him with such force it fell of the hinges.

The man in Rosalie's arms stared up at her with fighting eyes, trying to speak, but only able to cough up blood.

In an irrational attempt of comfort, Rosalie began humming a song I'd never heard of in my life.

I could sense the struggle with her bloodlust lacing itself in her thoughts of concern and worry. Her voice was strained as she fought against her instinct to kill him.

Rosalie looked deep into his eyes with a covenant promise that he wasn't going to die. He looked at her, fighting for her gaze with everything he had left.

She was trying to put him back together, but he was in a thousand different pieces, ripped all from each other. He was mangled and beyond repair.

But, I could do something.

I could.

This was his only hope. This was Rosalie's only hope.

"Do it." Esme said, her voice strong and confident.

I looked over at her, my heart heavy and troubled. Her eyes remained sure and cool.

"Carlisle..." She began again - my wife, my love, my Queen.

"Do it." She asserted. "For Rosalie."

I clenched my jaw.

Next, I would've taken his hand as I had done with Edward's, Esme's, and Rosalie's – but his hands were violently disfigured and bloody from the attack.

Instead, I put my hand on his rapidly rising and falling chest, saying a prayer and begging the Lord, God to be with his soul… and ours.

Esme knelt beside me and put her hand on my shoulder in support, comfort, and solidarity.

"Thank you." Rosalie breathed.

She looked up at me with grateful eyes, still stroking his hair in a sort of victory. I felt a pit in my stomach as I looked up and away.

"Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo." I said into the sky for the fourth time.

'If I cannot bend the will of heaven, I will move hell.'