petrichor [rosalie hale]

xii. pack

"That's great news, thank you, Doctor Richards," Carlisle hummed down the phone, his eyes glancing over to where Rosalie was standing with her back to the rest of the family. Her hand was raised to her mouth and he didn't need super-senses to know that she was biting her nails -  a completely human habit that she had picked up in the past few years whenever she was nervous. "Send my love to your husband and the kids."

There was a sombre silence as the phone call ended, everyone already having heard the entire conversation from across the room. There was one advantage to living in a house of vampires and that was that there was no need to repeat or summarise a phone call conversation. 

Emmett looked conflicted on whether he should go and try to comfort Rosalie, but he knew that Beverly knew her biological sister better than anyone else and if his mate thought keeping a wide berth from Rose was a good idea, that was exactly what he would do. Edward barely reacted to the phone call, his eyes casting a glance to Jasper as the man stiffed a little with the amount of emotions he had been receiving from his family in the past twenty minutes.

"An animal attack," Esme murmured, breaking the silence as she spoke out the words they had became all too familiar with over the course of their coven's history. "You don't think..."

"No," Alice interrupted immediately, her voice a little tight and defensive as she thought about what Esme was implying. "I'd have seen it, if it was her... I saw it for Laurent with Bella, I'd have seen it for Kiara..."

"Well you didn't see it though, did you Alice?" Rosalie suddenly spat, spinning around and shooting a look so fierce and cold that Beverly rose to her feet slightly incase she needed to step in between her sisters and stop whatever potential fight was about to ensue. "If you had maybe just tried a little harder, Kiara wouldn't be laying in a hospital bed back in Forks! She wouldn't have almost DIED!"

Emmett rose to his feet too, moving towards Rosalie with his hands up to try and calm the blonde down. He noticed Jasper focus on the blonde for a moment before Carlisle also stepped forward and shot his adopted daughter a warning look. They all knew that Rosalie had always been rather argumentative before she met Kiara, but ever since leaving her she had become like a ticking time bomb. Edward moping around certainly didn't help things.

"You know I've tried," Alice spat, her voice trembling slightly as she felt a pang of hurt go through her body. "I loved Kiara too, you know that Rose."

"Stop that," Rosalie spoke softly, tears pooling slightly in her eyes as she looked across at the rest of her family with a sort of distain in her mouth. She hated that she would never get to life a normal life, hated the fact that she had to constantly move around and never stay in one place for too long all because of the monster she had been made into. "Stop talking about her as if she's in the past!"

"Rose-"

"No Esme," Rosalie interrupted, taking a step backwards to avoid Esme's motherly gesture of placing a delicate hand onto the blonde's shoulder. "I'm tired of having to hear you all talk about her as if she's just a past memory when I can't stop thinking about her - every single minute of every hour I think about her! This is exactly why I KNEW Edward getting involved with Bella was a stupid idea!"

"Oh come on," Edward suddenly spoke up, having not taken much interest in the conversation until his Bella was brought into it. He liked Kiara, he did, but Bella was a touchy subject for him and while he knew it was partially his fault that Rosalie and Kiara weren't able to still be together, he didn't think it was fair to use his hurting to her advantage. "You and Kiara were doomed from the start."

"EDWARD!" Carlisle wanted loudly, reprimanding his eldest as he looked over at him with a shocked look on his face. The rest of the coven mirrored his expression as they looked at Edward who was staring at Rosalie with no hint of remorse on his face. He didn't regret what he said, knowing that his relationship with Rosalie was probably his weakest out of all the siblings anyway.