The author of this "fanfiction," an individual known sometimes as "PrincessBertha," does not own any part of the Twilight franchise, and especially not any of the characters from that series, all of which are the property of Stephanie Meyer. However, PrincessBertha would like to brag that once, before she had ever heard of the Twilight series, she went to La Push and hung out on the beach and it was very cool but there were no abnormally tall boys that she could see. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only and does not depict actual events.

Author's Note: Months ago I said I was going to write a fanfic about Emmett. But of course, as anyone who was reading "Red Sky at Morning" as it was coming out knows, I sort of get really busy during the academic year. (During Summer, on the other hand, I seem to have nothing to do but write, as anyone who read "Endless Daylight" as it was being posted knows). This isn't that Emmett fanfic. Or maybe it is. First it was going to be comedy, and then it was going to be serious and actually examine him as a character. Then I got really stressed and decided to write something to relax. So what follows is more "The Price is Right" than "Red Sky at Morning," but if you enjoy CullenBanter then there's some "Endless Daylight" touches, too. Also, I updated my profile for the first time in months, so if you're curious about why I wrote ED or RSaM, do have a look.

Lastly (the way this is going, the whole fic will just be author's notes…) this doesn't really fit with any of the other fanfics I've done, but then again, it doesn't not fit, either.

Even-more-lastly: My other Twilight fics have been nominated for Indies, so check them out! (Thank you!)

Emmett had his hands fully. Metaphorically, not literally. Literally, his hands were empty. Why was Emmett metaphorically holding many awkward objects? Well, to begin with, his favorite niece, even if she was his only niece, needed to be taken to Girl Scouts.

Nessie, or Renesme, as absolutely no one called her ever because it is the single worst name in the history of the universe, even worse than "Blandina" which is actually the name of the patron saint of those falsely accused of cannibalism, and also worse than "Albus Severus" no matter what you might think, had demanded that she make friends. To do this, Nessie would need to go to school, or join a club, or be allowed unrestricted Internet access.

"But you have friends," her mother, Bella, which the reader should note is short for Isabella but definitely not short for Bellatrix, so if that isn't what you expected then you are probably reading the wrong story, had told her. "I'm your friend, daddy's your friend, you have Jake, and Uncle Emmett, and Auntie Rosie, and Uncle Jasper, and Auntie Alice, and Grandma and Grandpa…"

But the little half-breed was having none of it. "Mommy, you're all boring. All you do is have sex!"

If Bella had been able to blush, she would have, but seeing as how she was undead, she just looked at her young, but scarily precocious, daughter with shock.

"Don't look at me like that, Mother," said her Nessie, "You're soooo pleased that I sleep at night so you and daddy can sneak off. It's gross."

Bella did not know what to say. Finally, she said, "But Jacob…"

"Yeah, Jake's great," said the girl, "but he's sort of got a wolf pack to look after, remember, and frankly, it's a bit creepy that you always want us to spend time together. Seriously, he's old enough to be my dad and you keep going on about how he's my soul mate. I'm three years old!"

"He is your soul mate!"

"I'm three! No one who is three has a soul mate! Anyway, you only want him to be my soul mate so you don't have to feel bad about leading him on for so long when you and Daddy were going through your 'difficulties'."

Bella sighed. There was just no making Nessie understand that she and Jacob were meant for each other. And to be fair to Bella, Nessie looked a lot older than her scant three years, making the whole thing less creepy (but not un-creepy, either). This is because of a well-known cosmic law that heroines, especially those for which the reader can easily project herself onto, always get their way, and if this requires the existence of a child created from century-old sperm, not to mention the complete disregarding of hundreds of years of vampire mythology, then so be it. Furthermore, if for some reason the child ages stunningly quickly because the heroine simply cannot be subjected to a full 9 month pregnancy, then the child shall promptly stop aging on its 18th birthday to ensure an eternal, immortal, perfect family where "old" is having a physical age above 22.

Nessie had sighed, dramatically, already bored with arguing with her mother. She did not particularly enjoy speaking out-loud, but some arguments are better verbally rather than through images. For example, she could have explained her predicament to Bella by showing her the following series of images:

1. Bella and Edward making out in a way that no child ever wants to witness her parents doing,

2. Similar scenes of her aunts and uncles and grandparents,

3. An imagined scene of the wolves in utter chaos because of Jacob's absence. The scene features Leah, the female wolf, eating Sam's carcass just for LOLs.

4. An image of Nessie's other grandfather arresting Jacob for spending too much time with a child and,

5. An image of Nessie looking sad and lonely.

Nessie's decision to talk to her mother out loud was probably best.

Eventually, Bella had relented. Nessie's father, one Edward Cullen, he of the liquid topaz eyes and dazzling, hairless chest, had refused to allow it, being fearful that something might happen to his daughter, but on recalling that she was immortal, reluctantly agreed, provided Nessie promised not to a) eat her new friends or b) tell them that she was secretly vampire spawn.

And that is how Miss Nessie Cullen came to be a member of the Forks Girl Scout Troop 376. At last, Nessie had friends her own age (well, not her own age, as she looked about 9 and so was in a troop of 9 year olds). Which is why Emmett now had to take her to her Girl Scouts meeting.

She followed him to his truck, and when he opened the door for her, she jumped in. Literally, this time. She jumped straight up and then landed in the seat.

"Uncle Emmett, for the Halloween Carnival next week, we all have to wear costumes… Do you think Auntie Rose would let me borrow hers?"

Emmett's throat tightened. Dammit, he thought they had hidden the nurse's outfit better this time!

"You know," Nessie continued, as they drove at break-neck speed to her Troop Leader's house, "the zombie bride one?"

"….Wha?" asked her uncle. He had no memory of a zombie bride costume. Nurse, police officer, sexy construction worker (okay, that one was his), but no zombie brides...

"Last month, when I had no friends, and I was playing hide-and-go-seek with myself, I was hiding in one of her closets, and I found this old wedding dress with blood on it… is she going to wear it for Halloween, or can I borrow it for my Scout Carnival?"

"…Uh….yeah…. I don't think Auntie Rose will want you playing with that, dear…." He said. Wow, that was awkward. Nessie looked disappointed, so Emmett wondered to himself what else he could have said. Probably best not to tell the child why Auntie Rosie has a blood-stained wedding dress in the closet.

"That's okay," she said, "I'll go as my second choice instead."

"What's that?" but he was thinking Don't let it be a nurse, cop, or sexy construction worker….

"Werewolf!"

Emmett sighed, knowing his brother Edward was not going to be very happy about that.

Taking Nessie to Girl Scouts probably doesn't sound like much, and indeed, if that had been the only thing on Emmett's agenda, then he probably wouldn't have had his hands "full." But don't worry, this was only the start of his day.

As he was driving back toward the house, his cell went off. The ring tone was "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, so Emmett knew immediately who it was. No, not Rosalie. Emmett has selected this song for Edward's calls, since something about James Blunt's annoyingness reminded him of Edward.

"What?" he said, answering the phone. His super-speed reflexes meant that he could talk on a phone and drive at 150 miles per hour with no risk of road accident.

"It's Jasper," said Jasper, "so don't sound so angry."

"Why are you on Edward's phone?"

"Because I left mine upstairs so I made Edward feel like he wanted to lend me his. That is irrelevant. You are in town, are you not?"

Emmett grunted an agreement. Damn pretty boy with his stupid drawl and his stupid "special power." (No, it had not escaped Emmett's notice that he was one of the only vampires around that didn't have a magic gift, and no matter what Edward said, "super strength" did not count, as they all had some of that. As it turns out, Emmett, Rosalie and Esme all had secret hidden powers as of yet unknown, but all of that will be revealed in time.)

"The paper boy failed, yet again, to deliver my copy of the Seattle Times this morning, dear brother, and I would take it most kindly if you would stop by the store and pick me up one."

"Or," Emmett said, "you could kiss my ass."

"Emmett, your sad little homoerotic crush on me aside, I'd really like my newspaper."

"Okay, if one of us is gay, it's you!" Shouted Emmett down the phone. Arguing with Jasper was one of Emmett's favorite hobbies, so don't worry that he's actually upset. Arguing with Jasper was even better than arguing with Edward, mostly because Jasper is not a whiny little bitch ("Oh, you hurt my feelings! Oh, now I'm going to go play piano all alone and brood on my loneliness!")

Even so, Emmett did buy Jasper the paper. But he crossed out the top headline "Blood-draining Killer Strikes Again!" and wrote "Jasper sucks," an inadvertent pun that he failed to notice but that Jasper found hilarious.

Emmett was driving back to the Cullen family home, Jasper's newspaper on the passenger seat, when his phone rang again. It was the default ringtone, so he actually had to look at the phone to see who it was.

"Restricted," which probably meant a landline. Emmett answered with his customary politeness. "What?"

"Emmett, it's Carlisle," came Carlisle's silky voice. "I'm at the hospital. I called home and Jasper said you were out, so I thought I should ask you. Can you come by the hospital? I need help with something."

Emmett rolled his eyes at a mental image of Jasper volunteering him for something. "Yeah, sure, that's fine, be there in a sec," he said as he slammed the truck into reverse. He contemplated going in reverse the entire way, there not being much traffic in the greater Forks region, but eventually he did turn his car around.

At least this meant that Jasper would get his paper late.

Carlisle was not hard to find in the hospital, being that he was very glittery and had a phalanx of love-struck nurses and patients around him.

"Ah, Emmett! Right this way," said Carlisle as he shepherded Emmett into an examination room.

Emmett was unsure of what Carlisle needed, but he figured it could only be one of three things:

He needed Emmett to help sneak bags of donor blood out of the hospital to feed Nessie, who, having enjoyed human blood in the womb, was notoriously hard to please.

He needed Emmett to create a distraction while he, Carlisle, escaped from the hospital and away from the clutches of besotted nurses, patients or members of the public.

He had some ridiculously stupid errand he needed someone to run, something so mindless that he could have asked Emmett over the phone, but being about a gillion years old hadn't quite gotten used to the concept of phones for any purpose other than summoning one of his children.

Of course, it was number three.

"Emmett, thank you for coming. I really need help with something very important."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Crocus."

"…what?" asked Emmett.

"Crocus. You know, the flower. I have decided to plant some in our garden."

"….right."

"So could you run down to the garden store and get some bulbs? Thank you," said Carlisle, abruptly leaving Emmett alone in the room.

Of course. It had to be something stupid. And not like he could just go get them himself after work, or Esme could get them in between designing decorations for people.

Emmett left the hospital and headed toward what passed for downtown in Forks. By the time Emmett found the damn bulbs that Carlisle wanted it was nearly time to pick Nessie up from Girl Scouts. "No sense going home and then going straight out again," Emmett muttered to himself. He walked down Main Street holding the bag of overpriced bulbs for Carlisle, figuring that the best way to kill time was to wander in and out of shops he had no intention of buying anything from. Not that there were many shops in Forks, and most of them sold umbrellas. Another similarity that they all shared was the antlers displayed on the wall.

"Deer and moose, wow!" he said under his breath. "Try hunting grizzlies."

A new store had just opened it seemed, the bright colors visible in its window looking out of place in the otherwise green and misty town. Emmett stopped to look.

"GLiTZeGuRL," the front of the shop announced with big, purple plastic letters. Inside, Emmett could make out impossibly skinny mannequins modeling tiny tops and skirts. He wandered in. The shop was empty apart from a bored looking middle aged woman with permed hair who was busy ignoring Emmett.

Emmett was instantly glad that Nessie was so sheltered—he could easily imagine in a few years when her new friends were thirteen that this would be the place for them to pick up their polyester blends for when they pretended to be sixteen. He was just exiting passed a rack of extra-extra-extra-extra large "gold" hoop earrings when someone came out of the dressing room. Normally, he wouldn't care, but there was something about her scent—

He turned at vampire speed.

His mouth fell open.

"What do you think?" the too-familiar woman asked the shop attendant.

"Ah, very sexy!" Perm lady said. The outfit the woman was trying on consisted of a t-shirt that had been ripped in horizontal tears all across the back and that had a shimmery image of a woman's lips on the front. She was also wearing a too-tight skirt, its purple leopard print pattern the least of its problems.

Unfortunately, on her way back to the dressing room, she caught a glimpse of Emmett. She turned to face him.

They stood, frozen, staring at each other in possibly the most awkward moment of all time.

"Emmett," she said, looking like she wasn't sure if she should explain herself or not.

"Esme," he replied, trying to burn the image of her from his mind.

"I…" she said, at the same time he said, "I was just getting Nessie from Scouts."

The permed woman looked from one to the other. "Do you two know each other?"

Emmett was about to say, "she's my mother," but Esme got their first. She ignored the question, and said instead, "I'm just going to get changed."

Seconds later she emerged, wearing her usual Liz Claiborne ensemble, looking very motherly indeed. As she hurried out of the shop, Emmett saw her mouthing "I'll be back to buy those later," to the woman.

He followed her out into the street.

"Esme?"

"Look!" she said, too loudly, too defensively. "I'm young! I'm 26! I should be clubbing and having mindless sex with strange men!"

Emmett's mouth was agog. He did not want to think about his and Rosalie's adopted mom having mindless sex with strange men.

"Other girls my age are having the time of their lives! And me, I'm being a boring old woman! Now, I know what you're thinking," (actually, Emmett was trying very hard not to think anything just then) "that it's different for me, because in my day, 26 meant you were married with half a dozen children, but… it's… it's not fair! I'm stuck doing interior design for people with no taste, while the rest of you get to enjoy eternal adolescence!"

Emmett wanted, very much, to tell her that going to high school over and over again could probably be described as "Hell" but no did not seem like the time to speak up.

"I'm young!" she continued, "I'm pretty! But no one thinks I am! Oh no, it's always Carlisle who gets all the attention, while I have to be the boring mother figure!"

"Um..."

"Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother to all of you. But seriously, the last one of you is out of the nest! Edward finally married! Empty nest now! And I'm gonna enjoy it!" Her voice was very loud.

"But, um, Nessie," he started.

"Yeah, I know. But you know what? Maybe Edward and Bella can raise Nessie, there's a thought! Maybe my son, who didn't bother using a damn condom, can raise his own child! Maybe, just maybe, I want to enjoy by unlife and not be saddled with any more kids right about now, okay? I love being a grandma, it's great, the best part is that HER PARENTS SHOULD BE DOING ALL THE WORK!"

Yeah, she was definitely shouting now.

"But, you want children," he said, trying to understand. "Your baby died, and you want to be fertile, and you love having all of us adopted kids, and Nessie is the perfect thing in your life, the baby you couldn't have…" he looked at her for confirmation. She simply stared at him angrily, so he forged ahead, "like Rosie. She wanted a baby too…"

"Yeah. I want children. I have children. But I want other things, too!"

This was too much for Emmett. "No… you…you just want babies. Lots of children. You are maternal. Like Rosalie, except… she wants babies, and it made her bitter and angry."

"So what you're saying, Emmett, is that women only want babies?"

Emmett nodded happily. Finally, she understood him.

"No, dear," she said quietly, with her old familiar patience. "Some women want babies, but they can also want other things too, in addition to babies."

"Like…babies?" he suggested.

"No. Emmett, I know it's a hard concept, but sometimes people have several things that they want or that they care about."

"No they don't," he said. Emmett was not being intentionally thick, nor was he trying to be sexist. He couldn't help it. In Emmett's life, people only wanted one thing. Esme and Rosalie were baby-starved. Carlisle liked helping people. Jasper used to just like blood but now he liked Alice and Alice liked Bella (not in that way though...). Bella liked Edward. Edward had wanted true love and now that he found it, he didn't want anything else. Even the dog, Jacob, only wanted Bella, and now that he couldn't have her, the cosmos had conspired to give him Nessie.

"Emmett," his adoptive mother said patiently, "I know it's difficult to understand. Sometimes, I want to be something more than your mother. That doesn't mean that I don't want to be your mother, it just means that I want to be something else, as well. It's called 'finding yourself.' You should try it."

"But I'm right here," he said.

"No, it's…um… it's about thinking about what you want. What do you want?"

Emmett thought about this. "…blood?"

"And?"

"….um…sex?" he said. Sex with Rosalie was very nice.

"And?"

"I like my truck," he said, pointing to wear it was parked down the street. "It's big!"

"Anything else?"

Emmett thought about it. "I like being tough."

"So what you're saying is that you are a stereotype of a particular kind of young man."

"No… I'm Emmett!"

"I know that," she said tiredly. "But Emmett is more than all of the things you just described. I think you need to spend some time thinking about who you are and what you want."

And that was when his phone rang. It was Nessie, wanting to be picked up from Girl Scouts.

Emmett's (un)life would never be the same again.

Join us next time as Emmett begins to discover himself, argues with Jasper and becomes involved with community service.

Remember, reviews are love.