"Daddy?"

That sweet little voice had never failed to bring a smile to my face, and this time was no exception. Particularly as it had been such a long while since I had heard my daughter speak out of turn — once bubbly and enthusiastic, treating each day like a surprise package wrapped up in shiny paper, Alice had, over the past ten months, wilted like a flower ripped from the earth and left too long in the hot sun.

"Are you busy?" she asked timidly.

As if I anything I did could be more important than one of my children. I smiled and held out my arms for my sweetheart. She climbed nimbly into my lap, curling up against my chest and nuzzling her forehead into my collarbone. I tilted my face until her soft brown hair pressed my cheek, breathing in her delicate floral scent. We sat that way for a long while before Alice spoke.

"Daddy, it's been almost a year now," she murmured brokenly, and I sighed when I realized she was thinking about him. Not that I was in the least surprised; only that I would trade everything I had just to give her five minutes of peace from the regrets that tormented her. "Why doesn't he come home?" My little pixie began to shudder with dry sobs.

"I don't know, baby," I whispered back, fighting the urge to cry along with her. "I thought he would be back sooner than this, truly I did, or I would never have put you through such hell."

"I've been thinking . . ." Alice laced her tiny fingers in between mine, and it nearly broke me to see just how frail they looked. "I thought it would make him want to change, knowing I was waiting here. That's why I stayed. I thought you were right, and I still think that, even now. But . . . I can't be without him . . . without Jasper . . . much longer," she finished in a whisper. It was the first time she had referred to her mate by name since he left us so long ago. "I have to find him, Daddy. No matter what he did, or is doing, or whether he ever comes back to you . . . Jasper is my life."

"I would not stop you, my love, although it would tear me into pieces to lose you, too," I said. "Sweetheart, I made a decision that I saw to be right at the time. I thought that if Jasper felt he was acting on his own impulses, rather than being forced to comply with our rules, he would come back on his own, and the better for having chosen freely this life of ours." I took a deep breath. "I was . . . mistaken. I was so sure that he would miss the love we all tried so hard to show him."

"I don't think you were mistaken. But I can't understand why he won't come back." Her bony frame shivered in the nest she had made in my arms. "I see him sometimes . . . small things, like where he's going to stay for the day or . . . or what he'll eat . . . but nothing to indicate he's thinking about coming back, and I haven't been able to sense anything for weeks now, and . . . and . . ."

"You are afraid that he has not returned because he cannot," I said slowly. "I see." I sighed, knowing that it was not right to stop her seeking out her mate, but loath to let her go all the same. "I will speak to your mother . . . Alice?"

"Yes?" Always so trusting. Could I ask her to trust me again? What if I were wrong?

"Will you wait a very little longer, darling? I fear your mother will be overwhelmed at losing another child, particularly if it were to happen suddenly."

"Of course, Daddy." She would never wish to hurt Esme, and I felt ill at the thought of using her mother's love against her. But I worried enough over my son, who was more than capable of taking care of himself. How could I possibly bear to relinquish my tiny daughter, as well, to a life of nomadic horrors?

I have never liked to think of myself as a coward, but I admit that I cringed from holding that conversation with my wife, despite the desired effect of letting time soften the blow of Alice's departure. Alice, and what it cost her I do not know, waited patiently for my leave to follow after Jasper. I am not sure how much time would have passed in this fashion; three weeks had gone by already when one evening, my study door was flung open without so much as a knock.

"He's here, Dad! Outside in the yard — that's his scent, I know it!"

There was no need for Alice to elaborate — we both knew which 'he' she was referring to. I closed my book with a snap, and within seconds I was downstairs, Alice close on my heels. "Emmett, Edward, outside, quickly!" I barked at my sons, who were playing that ridiculous board game Candyland on the living-room floor again. I could not believe that, at a time like this, I even cared what they did with their unlimited time, but that is how the mind works. I gave up long ago trying to understand it.

The boys, whether they fully understood the situation or not, were quick to obey me. Once outside, I explained that Alice had caught Jasper's scent in the yard. "Emmett, go out in the backyard and check the forest; Edward, try the sides of the house. I will go down the driveway towards the road."

It took only a moment to reach the lane, though our driveway is almost three-quarters of a mile long. At no point did I detect Jasper's scent, nor did I see any evidence that anyone had been there. To be sure, I ran a good mile down the road, then returned at a human pace, lest I had missed something in my haste. However, there was nothing — no smell, no shoeprint in the mud, no scrap of fabric caught on the underbrush. Jasper, if he had indeed returned, had not passed this way.

I waited anxiously on the front porch for my boys, all the while acutely aware that Alice was just inside, expecting us to return with her mate any moment, and probably growing increasingly frantic at our prolonged absence. It was a relief when my two sons came around the side of the house, but when they did, they were unaccompanied. I searched their faces for information, but Edward shook his head at me, and Emmett only shrugged helplessly and splayed out his hands, palms up.

I growled in frustration. "Was he here?" I asked them.

"I didn't pick up his scent," Edward told me.

"Emmett?"

Emmett shook his head. "Nope. I didn't smell him, either."

"Alice was mistaken," I said under my breath. "And she was so hopeful. This is going to hurt your sister terribly." My shoulders sagged, and Edward snarled as he picked up on my thoughts. He muttered something too low for even my vampire ears to detect, but I had a feeling I was better off not knowing what it was.

Alice was waiting in the living room, peering anxiously out the window. She looked up expectantly as we three filed into the house, but her eager expression fell when Edward closed the door behind him. "Where's . . . ?"

I looked at her disappointed face and thought I might just be able to cry for the first time in almost three hundred years. "I am sorry, sweetheart. It was a mistake. Jasper is not here."

"That's impossible — don't you think I know his scent?" she cried.

"No, Alice," Edward murmured, perching on the sofa arm and stroking his sister's hair. "I know you miss him, but he's not out there. I'm so sorry."

"You're all wrong." Alice's eyes, so long dulled by the pain of losing her only love, now shone bright with hope and excitement. "He's come back."

"Then where is he?" Emmett reasoned with her.

"You scared him away! He'll come back, I know he will — you just made him nervous, is all." Alice settled back contentedly against the sofa cushions.

Edward and Emmett and I shared a look over Alice's head. This was bad, very bad, and my sons' eyes mirrored my concern. But three of us had gone out searching and found nothing. What else was there to do?

"Daddy?"

"What, sweet girl?" If it is in my power, you shall have it, a hundred times over . . .

"If he comes back . . . this time, you won't let him leave again, will you?"

'What's gone and what's past help should be past grief,' but Alice's innocent plea struck me as an accusation, and ripped open afresh the memory of the last time Jasper and I had spoken, as well as the guilt I had never completely managed to bury. My voice hitched in my throat as I answered, "Jasper is welcome here any time he wishes, Alice, you know that."

"I don't understand why I still can't see him," Alice fretted. Her face brightened. "Maybe he'll try our window tonight!" With that, she got up from the sofa and tripped lightly up the stairs, leaving the three of us with our mouths open, and making me wish fervently that vampires could be sedated.

"I don't know what honks me off the most," Emmett growled. "Jasper being such a goddamn dipshit as to leave in the first place, or — "

"Or the entirely inappropriate language his departure seems to have inspired?" I murmured distantly, still staring after Alice.

Emmett had the grace to look sheepish. "Uh, right . . . sorry, Dad. Well, I'm just saying that if he really came here tonight and left, after getting Alice all f — worked up, then he'd better watch out if I ever see him again."

"Your brother is welcome here anytime," I repeated firmly, turning to give my sons each a warning look in turn. "Even if you disagree with me, you will accept him for Alice's sake, I am certain. And if I hear any more of the language, the speaker will not be sitting anytime soon." Both boys looked properly abashed, and they murmured their apologies before returning to the game they had abandoned to search for Jasper.

Edward and Emmett understood, then, that Jasper was to be welcomed back with no recriminations. But — and this was infinitely more important — did Jasper?

I am sure I heard the front door open, but with four teenagers in the house, one becomes accustomed to blocking out background noise. Even footsteps crashing up the stairs toward me are not unusual. It was not until someone — Edward, once I recovered enough to employ my sense of smell — began a frantic staccato rapping on my study door that I realized something out of the ordinary had occurred.

Come —

I had not even finished the thought before my son burst through the door and rushed over to my desk.

"Dad, I think . . . I must be crazy, but I think I smelled Jasper just now," Edward told me, his golden-brown eyes full of concern. "I don't know if maybe there's something of his lying around that's setting us off, or if I'm still thinking about last night, but I really thought . . ." His voice trailed off. "Thing is, if I can smell it, maybe Alice will, too, and I don't think it's . . ."

I stood up and, feeling quite the wave of déjà vu, hurried out of the study, though it was Edward who followed me down the stairs this time. "Let me go alone, son," I told him. "In case it is . . . Could you please find some way to distract your sister?"

"Yeah, of course." He was gone in a flash, and I hoped he could keep Alice occupied long enough for me to find Jasper . . . or find out what was causing us this confusion.

Once I stood in the driveway, I realized Edward was correct. There were traces of a scent both familiar and estranged to me, and it appeared that the intruder had come partway up the drive before doubling back into the shelter of the trees.

I walked slowly down the hill at the side of the house, though I could have made the journey in seconds had I been so inclined. I wanted Jasper, if it were indeed my boy, to feel comfortable with my approach. I did not believe little Alice could stand another disappointment. But also, I found that I was actually a tad angry with Jasper for toying with his bonded that way, whether he meant for her to be hurt or not. Let him be the one to wait, tonight, even just for a few moments.

The scent grew stronger the closer I moved to the pines over by the western edge of the property, and now I realized that there were remnants of older smells, too. He had been here last night, perhaps even the night before. This place was downwind of the house, and I decided that Emmett and Edward must have skipped over the area, assuming that Jasper would approach from the forest behind or straight up the driveway. I felt guilty, once again, for doubting sweet Alice.

Jasper had chosen to wait in shadows so deep that, even to my sensitive sight, he at first appeared to be part of the tree he stood against. But he looked up at my approach, and it gave me quite a start to see his pale face shining through the darkness. I halted, unsure of how to handle the situation, all the while drinking in the sight of the boy I had not seen in almost a year. On the ground beside his feet lay his rucksack, significantly more worn than before, and he fingered the strap absently while waiting for me to speak.

Much as I longed to close the distance between us and embrace my son, I forced myself to remain aloof and let him make the first move. Otherwise, I would not be able to help bringing up Alice, and the agony and terror that had nearly broken her . . . and I would never know whether Jasper came back because of Alice or because he truly wanted our way of life.

The silence appeared to unnerve the young man standing in the shadows, as he began to nervously shift his weight around. "Ah, uh . . . Ah — Ah was thinkin' Ah might just stop by, 'n' . . . 'n' see everyone," Jasper stuttered awkwardly, staring at the ground. I felt such a wrench of sympathy when I heard the tremor in his voice, and the heavy accent that betrayed his anxiety. It had obviously taken a great deal of courage for Jasper to come back here.

"Alice was sure she had caught your scent last night," I replied noncommittally, "but we assumed she had been . . . mistaken."

"Ah came 'round heah . . . uh, here . . . for a minute, but . . . well, Ah didn't figure y'all'd let me come in," he admitted, scuffing one toe in the dirt.

"Would it have hurt you to ask?"

Jasper's gaze flickered to my face, and before he quickly looked away, I saw in the moonlight that the irises were no different in their coloring from my own. It was then I understood the purpose of his visit, and how long he must have been working toward it. My heart, or whatever passes for a heart in my vampire body and alternately breaks and mends clumsily with life's trials and sweet gifts, swelled with relief and gratitude for the second chance we might all be given . . . if I handled this correctly.

"Well . . . it'd'a hurt if you didn't say yes," he murmured.

"Try and see."

Jasper squared his shoulders and, finally, looked straight into my eyes. "May I come inside?" he asked me softly.

"Yes, Jasper. We shall all be glad to have you."

My son sighed, and his body relaxed as if a huge weight had been lifted off his back. He hefted the sack that had lain in the dust at his feet and trudged along beside me up the hill to the house. Again, we walked at a human pace . . . perhaps Jasper was not that eager to face the family he had shunned for so long.

I doubted the others could have overheard our conversation even at that relatively short distance, but they would have sensed us approaching. The front door stood ajar, a bright rectangle shining into the night. Alice, so tiny from where we were, stood silhouetted against the welcoming light of home. Her hands were clasped calmly in front of her, as if she had been waiting patiently for this moment all along.

Jasper paused uncertainly on the front porch, as though unsure whether to expect an embrace or a slap from his beloved. He twirled the strap of his bag while trying to read Alice's blank expression. Finally, Jasper took a tentative step forward and reached out hesitantly towards her. His hand lightly grazed her face before cupping her cheek, tenderly stroking her pale skin. "Alice . . ." he whispered.

Her own little hand, lily-pale and achingly delicate, came up to touch his face, and I left my children to their sweet reunion and entered the house. Esme was hovering in the foyer, her face anxious, but she visibly relaxed when I offered her a gentle smile, and she came willingly as I guided her into the living room. Emmett and Edward were standing in the middle of the floor, waiting for me. Rosalie lounged on the davenport, watching the television.

Edward was apologetic. "I was trying to keep Alice from knowing what was happening, Dad, but all of a sudden she got this look on her face — this blank look, the one she gets when she's having a vision — and she turned and went downstairs. Wouldn't even listen when I called after her."

"I imagine that a decision was finally reached just then which made the future certain," I replied slowly, belatedly realizing that Jasper must have been vacillating in his decisions of late — that was why Alice had been unable to 'see' him for so long. "Your brother has returned — whether for a visit, or for good, I cannot say. If it be that he wishes to remain here and try again, he will be welcomed, and nothing will be said about what is past."

My sons nodded. At that moment, the front door opened again and Alice tripped lightly in, leading Jasper by the hand like a toddler. As Jasper pulled against her grip long enough to close the door behind him, I gazed in wonder at my daughter's face, which was as animated and happy as ever it had been before her husband had left us so many months before. The others noticed it, too, and I saw Emmett and Edward share a grin. They, too, had become increasingly concerned for Alice as the weeks slipped by, and I had heard Edward threaten to rip Jasper apart if he ever dared show his face again. Emmett promised to hold him down while Edward worked.

But all that was forgotten as they watched their baby sister come back to life, as it were, before their very eyes. She led Jasper over to the sofa, and he followed somewhat reluctantly, though he met squarely all of our gazes in turn. Esme, who had never before been so forward with him, went straight up to Jasper and wrapped him in a tight embrace. He looked a bit wary at first, but as Esme was so obviously overjoyed to see him, he almost immediately relaxed and returned her gesture.

"I'm so glad you're home," she whispered softly. I expected Jasper to be embarrassed, but instead he only smiled and hugged his mother harder.

"I am, too," he answered her, low. She reluctantly released him after a moment, letting Jasper and Alice settle on the couch while she joined me on the loveseat. Emmett perched on the sofa arm next to the lovebirds, while Edward stretched out on the floor in front of the television.

"Good to have you back, man," Emmett murmured, tousling his brother's hair. Rosalie only gave him a civilized nod before returning her attention back to I Love Lucy, but I knew my daughter well enough to realize it was likely a front. Rosalie is not one for strong attachments, whether of love or loathing, but she and Jasper have always maintained a tacit understanding. Emmett is the exception . . . however, I often doubt that she is capable of bonding, even to him, the way Alice and Jasper or Esme and I have. I do not sense the same depth of feeling in my cold, blonde daughter, yet I love her for what she is.

Conversation flowed quite easily, much to my surprise, and several hours passed as our family, made whole and complete once again by the return of the prodigal, caught Jasper up on what he had missed while gone. From Jasper himself, we gleaned little information, although he did say he had spent most of his time with Peter and Charlotte. It was a relief to me to learn that he had at least been with friends — though they did drink humans, I had heard nothing but praise for them from my son — and had not fallen so far as to return to Maria.

Alice was so happy and contented that she only snuggled against her mate, saying little as she stroked his chest and purred deep in her throat. Even our silences were easy, companionable. Finally, though, when it was obvious that there was little else to share, I steeled myself for what I knew must be done and spoke. "I think we need to talk, Jasper," I told him.

He winced, but nodded his agreement. "Yes, sir."

"Upstairs, please."

In yet another instance of circumstances repeating themselves, Jasper headed up the stairs to his bedroom, leaving Alice behind on the sofa. She was initially reluctant to loose her hold on him, but as he leaned back toward her and murmured softly, her little body relaxed. I heard the words — 'tis not hard for a vampire to overhear anything — and even I believed my son when he told Alice, "I will never leave you again."

As Jasper trudged upstairs, I turned to my children and said, "I would ask that you all find something to occupy yourselves while I deal with your brother." Edward, Emmett, and Rosalie all scattered, and only Alice remained seated as Esme retired to the kitchen. I knew she would not move until it was time to comfort her beloved. Just as I had the last time, I gave her a reassuring smile, and this time, she returned it. It was an incredibly humbling experience to witness her absolute — though quite undeserved — trust in me. I had already abused it once, and had no intention of ever doing so again.