One of Our Own

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Shopping is not a shallow thing to me; it never has been. I spent the first few years of my life running around in rags, wearing ill-fitting shoes and stealing from other people's clotheslines. There was an isolation in that, a loneliness. Back then, I already felt like enough of a freak, enough of a monster, and the way people had stared at me in the streets, at my grungy bare feet and torn, bloodstained gown, only seemed to confirm this. To have my own money, to buy my own clothes, to look polished and pretty and normal… these were honest, deep desires and needs. I wanted to blend in. I wanted to belong. I wanted hold just a small piece of a normal life my hands — the normal life that I would never truly have for my own.

And there were the colors, of course: velvety red, watery lilac, envy green, creamy yellow… a thousand different shades of blue, white, pink, and orange. And the feel of different fabrics on my fingertips and against my cheek: cashmere, silk, feather-soft wool. In exchange for smooth paper bills, I was handed thick paper bags with rope handles and stylish logos, boxes with soft folds of tissue paper and yards of satin ribbon. A weight in my hands, swish and crinkle of packages brushing against my legs. And here, people smile at me just to smile — the cashiers, the other shoppers, the eager-to-please concierge.

I feel more human here than anywhere else in the world, like any other flesh and blood woman who delights in the promise of something new and beautiful.

When the elevator door opens with a ping, I step out and adjust the shopping bags into the crook of my elbow, peeking into one of them with a smile. It wasn't my largest shopping excursion ever, not by far, but I had made some decent progress on preparing for the upcoming Fall season. Along with several dresses, coats, cardigans, scarves, hats, and gloves, I also purchased a new pair of boots for Jasper, and a navy-blue military coat I knew he'd love. As much as he teases me about it, I know he understands and empathizes with this odd compulsion of mine. He accepts my gifts with a warm compassion that lets me know he sees the deeper reason behind why I dress him, why I dress myself, and why I always feel so at peace when I come home with something new.

I find Rosalie and Esme at one of the registers on the ground floor, Esme handing over a stack of bills from her pocketbook while Rosalie examines her already-perfect nails. The cashier, a young, wide-eyed fellow with a cowlick, is staring at Rosalie as if she is the only woman he's ever seen in his entire life, gulping at each of her graceful gestures and nearly falling over when she brushes a lock of golden hair over her shoulder. She spies me walking toward them and grins knowingly — all three of us are used to making men nervous, but Rosalie definitely wears the crown when it comes to eliciting gawking and moments of painful awkwardness. Esme follows her gaze. "There you are. We were wondering where you'd gone to."

I hold up one of my bags — a delicate shade of lavender with white stripes. "Lingerie."

Rosalie shakes her head. "Such a waste of money. Two seconds and it's shredded on the floor like confetti."

The cashier turns a brilliant shade of red at this comment and begins stuttering like an invalid, dropping Esme's change beneath the counter and scrabbling at the spinning dimes and nickels with trembling hands. Esme sighs. "Rose."

Rosalie does her best to look innocent.

I laugh, and as soon as sound escapes me, I can feel it starting — a slow lightheadedness that makes the room seem uncomfortably small. The present disappears and drips into the future: a flickering scene of Jasper and I outside somewhere in the shade. He is sitting, and I am standing behind him, my arms wrapped gently around his neck, my lips brushing the soft skin beneath his ear. He is stroking one of my hands absently, but there is a far-away look on his face that I don't like, a general emptiness to him that makes me feel afraid.

"Jazz?" I ask hesitantly, sliding around so that I'm standing before him instead. I turn his head up so that he'll look at me, and stare deeply into his intense, emotion-filled eyes, my hands numb with worry, my lungs completely breathless. "What's wrong?"

"Sit down, darlin'," he says gently, pulling me into his lap. "We need to talk."

I come back to the present with a gasp, but no one has noticed my absence. Esme and Rosalie are picking up their numerous shopping bags and heading for the doors, and the cashier is lumbering after them with the receipt and his card. Slowly, reality seeps back into me: the ring of registers, the smell of Chanel perfume, glint of lights on the ceiling above me. I've dropped one of my hatboxes, and I pick it up numbly before following behind Esme and Rosalie in silence. This was our last stop, and I am absurdly and uncharacteristically grateful for that. I suddenly want to be home, to be in Jasper's arms, more than anything else in the world.

***

"Be careful with that glass."

Emmett glances over at Edward and rolls his eyes. "Yes, mother."

It is mid-afternoon, the sky is sprinkling a light summer rain, and the three of working on the addition at the side of the house again — as Emmett put it earlier, "engaging in manly pursuits while the womenfolk do their shopping." For some reason odd reason that she can never seem to sufficiently explain to me, Alice finds it necessary to begin Fall shopping in July. This time she coerced Esme and Rosalie into going with her, and the house feels strangely empty without them, especially without Alice. Being away from her makes me anxious and edgy; I'm so used to her bright aura being near now that any length of absence feels akin to missing an arm or leg. I am tense and irritable, and my mood is seeping into the others as well.

"Laugh all you want," Edward snaps at Emmett, glaring as our brother mockingly bobbles the window-piece between two steady hands. "But don't expect Jasper or me to rush to your defense if you break that and Esme finds out."

The framework and the roof are in place now, thanks to a long night of working by floodlight while the rest of the world slept, and Carlisle took a rare evening off from the hospital to help. He steps out through the kitchen door now, still wearing his work-pants and collared shirt, but missing the white doctor's jacket. His sleeves are casually rolled up to the elbows, and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. I wonder idly if the humans of Calgary would think better of us if they could see him now: in a normal, carefree state of less-than-perfection. Sometimes I think we're so concerned with blending in perfectly that we forget the how abnormal our constant flawlessness actually is.

"This is starting to look wonderful, boys, really," he says, walking around the work table. "And Jasper— there's a phone call for you."

I put the tape measurer down slowly, not quite sure I'd heard him right. I've never received a phone call before. Occasionally Alice would ask me to answer the phone for her when she was otherwise occupied, but no one had ever called for me. I wasn't exactly known as the social sort, and the idea of chatting on the phone seemed a bit like torture. "For me?"

Carlisle nods and turns away to help guide the window into the appropriate place, but Edward and Emmett look every bit as surprised as I feel. There is a smile hovering at the edges of Emmett's mouth and a bit of mischievousness in his aura that makes me think he either has something to do with this or is currently thinking up some sort of joke about the situation, probably the latter, knowing him. Keenly aware of their eyes on me, I head back into the cool house and make my way into the parlor, where the phone rests on a mahogany table.

I pick up the receiver and hold it up to my ear awkwardly. "Hello?"

"What in the hell have you done?"

I frown. "Peter?"

"She chased us onto a goddamn train, Jasper. A train!" Peter's voice yells back at me. I wince and hold the phone away further away from my ear as he screeches, his voice rising to the shrill, dangerous pitch of just-realized panic. "In broad daylight! With hundreds of human witnesses. She almost killed Charlotte. She almost snapped my head off. I have claw marks on my neck. I rolled through a garden of barbed wire. And all she would say was 'Where is he, where is he, Peter? Where's Jasper?' like a goddamn parrot. Like I'm your goddamn personal keeper. As if I know where you are every second of every day!"

"Who?"

He pauses. "Who? Who do you think? It was the Easter Bunny, Jasper— it's July and she wants her fucking eggs back. Maria, you moron. It was Maria. A very angry, very determined Maria. And I've really got to say, Jasper— after what we just went through, I think Char and I have a right to know why that harpy was chasing after us. So what the hell did you do to piss her off?"

Because my knees suddenly feel too weak to hold me up, I lean against the wall with one hand, the other gripping the phone so hard it cracks. "Okay, can you— can you just slow down? Start at the beginning."

"Charlotte and I were making our way across Nebraska, following this big storm cloud so we could stay out during the day." I could barely hear Charlotte's voice in the background, asking Peter to say something about the storm. "I am— I'm getting to that! Anyway, it just stops raining all of the sudden, right? And the sun is coming back out again, so Char and I are trying to get across the square as fast as possible to get into the shadows. And I felt really strange all of the sudden, like I could feel someone watching me. So I waited, and listened, and took a deep breath to smell... and when I turned around, there she was."

"There she was," I echo numbly, my body cold as ice.

"Right, and at first all I can think of is 'I can't believe my years of paranoia have actually just paid off,' but then she just... attacks. Viciously. With intent to kill. And all three of us were exposed, in front of hundreds of people— all of downtown Omaha. She busted through the doors of the train station, smashed a marble column, killed probably at least a dozen humans, chased us onto the train, and had it out with me in the car. We barely escaped with our lives, Jasper. I'm not kidding. She was out for blood. And you're in trouble, serious trouble— because it sounds like she wants you, and badly."

It is like a nightmare, like every possible worst case scenario I've imagined. Maria, even at her most ambitious, had always been fanatically careful about avoiding exposure and attention. To know that she is desperate enough, furious enough, to risk the Volturi's involvement by attacking Peter and Charlotte in front of witnesses is chillingly ominous. I can't feel my hands. I can't feel my feet. There is a dull static roar in my ears that makes it hard for me to hear Peter, or anything else except the quiet ticking of clock in the kitchen behind me. "You're both safe?" I ask.

"Yes. But Jasper—"

"I know. I'll deal with it."

Peter pauses, and even miles apart, I can still feel his internal struggle with emotion — how much to show and how much to hold back, a soldier who isn't used to wearing his heart on his sleeve. Neither one of us has ever been very good at this; at saying what we feel. Maybe it was Maria herself who taught us this, or maybe it was just the hard years we spent in her service, but either way, no matter how close Peter and I really are, the affection we feel for each other will never be spoken out loud. "Take care," he finally says, and we both know he thinks it might be the last time he'll ever get to talk to me. There is a soft click, and then a long, endless dial tone fills my ear.

I place the phone back in the cradle and keep my hand over it for a second, trying to remain calm. Some awful, monstrous pressure is building in my chest, accompanied by strange abstract flashes of my past with Maria. The animated, wild look in her eyes before she killed a human; the cold detachment of her voice when she sent her soldiers to die. Her unfailing, unswerving determination when it came to getting what she wanted. No one was more determined than Maria. No one was more ambitious. If she wanted to find me, if she really did, nothing would stop her. But... why now? Why not three years ago when her man-puppet Kade Lykes had Alice and I cornered in a warehouse in Beaumont, Texas?

Alice. Oh God. I clench both hands on the edge of the table and bend my head down, my stomach churning. What was I going to do about Alice? Setting the obvious need for her safety, I can only imagine the look of shock and horror on her face, and the feelings of fear and insecurity that will surface the moment I speak Maria's name. The two of us had already fought and dealt with my past and the pieces it had managed to carve out of my soul, but the fighting had always been in abstract — never a face-to-face battle with the devil who caused it all.

I can't tell Alice. I just can't. However hard and dangerous this may be, the problem is mine and mine alone, and I will deal with it on my own. Alice will never have to know. Jaw set in determination, I turn around — and stumble back in surprise. Edward is standing behind me with his arms crossed.

"You're not going to tell her?"

I narrow my eyes at his disdainful expression. As if he knows what's best for me and my wife. As if he knows better than I how to keep her safe. I may be flawed in many, many ways, but my concern for Alice's protection has never been one of them. Nothing is more important to me than keeping her safe and happy. I've already brought enough trouble and suffering into her life just by simply being who I am. I wasn't about to add to that by worrying her needlessly about the woman who has always haunted us both. There is absolutely no reason why she should ever have to know. I will simply take her someplace safe where Maria can't find us.

Edward sniffs. "That's a stupid idea."

Fine, I think furiously, hating him for his haughty attitude and the utter lack of privacy his talent lends to any and all interactions. I push past him through the parlor and into the kitchen, done with this conversation and currently done with him. If moving Alice to a safe location would be too dangerous, then I have no choice but to cut the trouble off at the source. I'll find Maria myself, and take care of her before she can even reach us.

"That's even worse."

I spin around instantly, but Edward steps away before I can get there, and my fist punches straight into the wall, spitting out plaster and creating a jagged hole. Edward ignores both the damage and my livid growl. "You are not on your own anymore, Jasper," he says calmly, and the pity I feel in his aura makes me feel embarrassed and slightly pathetic. His golden eyes are full of gentle determination — a look that reminds me of Carlisle, of Alice, of love. "You joined our family. You're a part of us now. You're one of our own. Your fight is our fight."

I can feel that he's sincere in what he's saying, and a large part of me is touched by this — by the fact that it isn't just Alice who they consider a part of their family, that they value my presence as well. But there is bitterness attached to this realization too; the resentment that comes with being loved when you aren't used to affection, and being pitied when your whole existence has always depended on being strong. "You don't understand," I say curtly.

Edward lifts an eyebrow. "You're right. If only I had some way of getting into your head and hearing what's really going on."

I lean toward him aggressively, and he leans right back, letting out a soft growl of warning — both of us are stubborn and immovable, and things will come to blows if he keeps standing in my way. Edward might know a great many things, but he doesn't know everything; not about me, not about Alice, and certainly not about Maria. He doesn't know what she's capable of, he doesn't know what she's done. He's never been there to see her strategizing a war, ordering her soldiers to slaughter innocents and gorge themselves on human blood, all for another mile of territory.

Carlisle walks into the kitchen then, asking an unheard question about measurements, and takes in the scene with a great deal of alarm: Edward and I facing off with clenched fists and locked jaws, the jagged hole punched through the kitchen wall beneath Esme's antique clock. He sets a pile of blueprints down on the counter slowly and frowns. "Is there a problem?" he asks, looking between the two of us warily, his gaze eventually settling on me. "Jasper?"

Wordlessly, I turn away from them all and leave.

***

Esme and Rosalie are chatting merrily and glad to be home, closing car doors and reaching for shopping bags, laughing about something I can't really hear. But I am quiet, and numb, and stare at the house with a mixture of dread and uncertainty. All I can think about is Jasper, and the vision I had just had, all I can concentrate on is what it might have been that made him look like that — as if the worst possible thing imaginable had happened. I gather my armfuls of shopping bags and follow the other two women in through the door, my eyes already scanning the room for Jasper's face. Carlisle and Emmett are there, but Jasper isn't. I can't feel him or hear him in the house, and though his scent is there it doesn't feel as if he's close. In the rush of talking and laughter that follow, I back into an alcove alone and begin to feel very, very small and afraid.

"He left," Edward says quietly, from the kitchen doorway.

I can't stop the immediate flood of panic. No matter how many times Jasper tells me he's not going anywhere, I still have an automatic reaction of horror when I can't find him. I don't often think of the days we spent apart after the warehouse incident, when I didn't know if he'd ever come back to me or not, but the vestiges of them are still there in my heart; dark prickly memories of staring blindly at a wall, completely detached from my physical being. "What do you mean he's not here?" I demand, my voice slightly higher than usual.

The shopping bags drop haphazardly to the floor, and my hands clutch uncertainly at my chest. Everyone stops talking and turns to look at me, and I feel as though I am about two seconds away from a mental breakdown. Then a stationary vision flashes: Jasper sitting glumly by himself in our favorite shady glen, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers. I let out a breath of relief. "Nevermind."

Edward, who just read my every mortifying thought, stares at me with sympathy and an odd sort of tentativeness. He looks very much as if he wants to say something, but is battling with himself on whether or not to actually speak it out loud. This kind of behavior is puzzling coming from him, because if there is one thing my brother is well -known for, it is speaking his mind — whether people want to hear it or not. But after thirty seconds of internal debate, he only sighs and picks up the fallen shopping bags. "Go ahead," he says kindly. "I'll put these upstairs."

"Thank you," I say, and I wish I could say more, but I suddenly want to be with Jasper so deeply that I truly can't wait — not even to hear what's bothering Edward or why there's a hole in Esme's kitchen wall. I dance past him and the rest of the family to the back door and out into the warm summer air.

Behind the trees, the sun is sinking, but not anywhere near the horizon yet, still burning gold in haze of rosy clouds. The crickets are out, and the birds are still singing; every sound is like one part of a perfectly harmonized song. This shade of light reminds me of other evenings spent alone with Jasper, of the quiet creaking of a porch swing and the sound of his deep voice as he read Charles Dickens out loud. It reminds me of the first time we made love, and the first time we really ever kissed, of a June wedding and the way he looked at me when I was walking toward him with a bouquet of lilies in my hands. The shady glen, which has never seemed that far of a distance before, suddenly feels as though it's an entire universe away from me.

I run until I am less than twenty feet away, and step into the shady light with an irrational dread that he won't be there — that he'll be gone and I'll be left alone; my greatest, most terrible fear.

But then the wonderful cedar scent of him surrounds me like an embrace, and when I step through the trees I can see him there, sitting on a fern-covered stump twirling a blade of grass between his fingers. He is so handsome that, even in his dark moments, he takes my breath away. I love his tousled gold hair and the strong line of his shoulders, the white hands that fit so perfectly around my own. He keeps his back to me, but I know he knows I'm here; his posture relaxes the instant I start walking toward him. I place my arms around his neck and kiss him below the ear, closing my eyes briefly when I feel his hand move over the top of mine.

I slide around until I'm standing in front of him, and turn his face so that his intense golden eyes stare back into my own. "Jazz?" I ask hesitantly. "What's wrong?"

"Sit down, darlin'," he says, pulling me into his lap. "We need to talk."

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A/N: Thank you for your patience with the long update gap.

Christmas is wonderful, and by far my favorite time of year, but I just want to stress to anyone who will listen how deeply hard the holidays can be for some. You've probably heard it all before, I'm sure, but as someone who has spent more Christmases alone than she cares to share, it is a very true, very sad fact. There are people out there who don't have anyone. People who have lost someone. People who can't be with the ones they love. If ever there was a need for kindness and mercy, this is definitely it. I'm not saying you have to go out and volunteer at a soup kitchen or knit handmade socks for the poor, but a smile goes a long, long way. Be friendly, be kind, and know that there are a lot of broken hearts this time of year, and a lot of lonely people who just want to be noticed. If you've been blessed with joy to share, share it. Make a difference. :)