A/N: Thank you so much for the adds to your lists and for reading this little mystery story! Thanks ESPECIALLY to all who review! I love to hear from you! This is an EARLY UPDATE for reasons that will be explained later. See you down below!

Chapter 6 - 2023

Jasper POV

"What is with you and that stupid hat, Jasper Whitlock?" Alice and I were at the First Ladies' Evening Gowns exhibit at the Smithsonian. It was a collection that came and went and its main draw for me was not the evening wear nor the opportunity I would also have to see some new Civil War memorabilia that had been unearthed, cleaned and catalogued in the last few years. The draw for me was strategic. I was working with Bella again. We had managed to do this a few times, unbeknownst to anyone.

I tried to play the hat thing off. "Oh, I got used to messing with it outside, you know." Outside, where Bella was playing her new game of Flipping Jasper's Switch from whatever hidden perch she had chosen. I tucked the hat in the back pocket of my pants and sent out my emotive fingers and got nothing. Damn, but my little sister was improving. Got me while I was inside the Smithsonian. I had to grin while I stood behind Alice. She was looking at strapless evening gown from the Michelle Obama Collection and didn't notice. I didn't feel her emotions though, so maybe she had and counted on my noticing? Hell, that might get complicated. I grimaced and then, suddenly, the shield was gone.

Alice was content. The couple to my right was bored, and the children here on a school trip were hungry. All was normal in my world again.

Until I got a text.

I tracked her here. I have your scent. I have Alice's. I lost hers. Where is she? - E

I haven't seen her. When'd you get here? -J

Last minute decision. Where are you? -E

I had to chuckle as I reviewed our texts. Alice felt my unshielded emotive burst and turned, curious. I showed her the last text and she slipped my phone from my hand and, beaming, made a bee-line for the nearest exit, texting all the while. Oddly enough, she didn't stand out at all amongst the humans we walked among in the museum. Several young people were doing exactly the same thing at nearly her speed.

It was overcast over Washington D.C. this early summer day. All of us Cullens (and Whitlocks and McCartys) had all been very cooperative in the eyes of the Volturi. Part of me bristled because Edward, by meeting with us openly, was visibly breaking the agreement of sorts that had been forged in Italy the previous year. Alice and I were forfeit to the Volturi – according to them – if we met again.

That was only until we figured out a way around that. Or until Bella, blast her eyes, got enough practice under her bustle that she could do whatever it was she was planning on doing. I wonder how much Edward had picked up from her? Had she opened her mind to him at all? Had he had the opportunity to ask her things in that way he had? The man was an excellent interrogator, for all he didn't always want to know what people were thinking. I'd give him that. His old "What is it you don't want me to know?" trick had worked on me. Even when I hadn't said anything, the things I'd wanted to keep hidden had floated through my thoughts and revealed themselves to him.

We saw him in front of the building and I checked in with him. Edward. She's not here. I haven't seen her, I'm telling you. What do you mean, you lost her scent?

"Alice asked me the same thing," he murmured, scanning the milling people that crisscrossed over the wide cement avenues and either headed to another building of the Museum, patronized a covered kiosk for a hotdog, or were heading off to the subway. "I tracked her to Washington Monument but then her scent – it evaporated or something."

Alice gasped in surprise and I remembered to look as if I were surprised too – but it took me too long and my brother accosted me with a severe slashing of his gaze. I felt the pulse of angry determination from him and winced visibly.

"Jasper Whitlock. I cannot believe you." Alice slapped my arm – hard – right there on the avenue. "We really need to talk about this secret stuff."

"Yes. We do," Edward ground out. Betrayal came from him with jagged edges of hurt and brotherly affection and despair. "Let's move, shall we?"

"What about Bella?" Alice whispered, linking her hands with my elbow and Edward's as if we were all one big happy family. "Jasper?"

"I doubt she'll be joining us." I didn't look at Alice, but tried to reach out with my emotional sensors and found myself blocked. I suppressed my smile; didn't want to make Edward mad or anger my lovely wife. "How was graduation?" I said instead to my brother. "Sorry we couldn't make it," I went on, remembering another one of Bella's emails. She had been pouting in it – in her own way. She wanted the Volturi to know no one was coming to see her get her first doctorate. "But you know how it is."

"Indeed." The block was removed and I could almost feel Edward poking around in my head. "So you know she's here but you don't know where and you haven't seen her. What the hell, Jasper?"

"Privacy. We aren't supposed to be together, remember? Where are you staying?"

"We've relocated to New Market. Small town, wooded. The usual. Bella was unpacking boxes while I scouted for the usual game trails and when I got back –"

I nodded, frowning. Edward's anger was invisible on his face, but I could feel it arcing out all around him, stretching to hit me as if it were an independent beast of its own. Still, I could also feel him reining it in; he didn't want me to feel it exactly. Complicated man. He – he wasn't throwing blame my way. Interesting. His frustration and anger were primarily for his wife. As was the new pulse of worry that I felt.

We worked our way, walking at a medium human pace, back toward the Washington Monument. I was both admiring my sister-in-law's cunning at staying the hell away from her husband right now and frustrated with her for doing the exact same thing. Where are you, Bella Cullen?

I imagine that she wasn't blocking my empathic abilities because doing so would clue her husband in as to what she was practicing. So I kept my mouth shut about it when Edward indicated a bench we should all gather around. Bella's scent was gone.

Alice was practically bouncing with impatience. "Edward! What's going on? Where's Bella? Jasper? Where is she? I cannot believe I can't see her!"

"You don't look too surprised," Edward told me, his gaze level. He brought one foot up to the bench and leaned lightly in that direction. We had all mastered the art of apparent humanity. "I think we should put our cards on the table, brother." His voice was mild enough, but I could sense the hard plane of purpose he was projecting. "For some reason, my wife has decided to trust you more than she trusts me. Sorry, Alice," he continued, placing a light hand on her shoulder. "I don't mean to be unpleasant."

I felt Alice's confusion and hurt slicing into me. "No, I'd like to know, too. Does this have to do with your little sightseeing trip in Italy?"

"What sightseeing trip?" Edward froze in place before shaking his head and reaching into his pocket for something.

I sighed and let myself remember the "sightseeing" trip to Volterra, concentrating on what I saw and not what I felt. Towers. People. The smoke from my cigarette. The pulse of exultation from the Tracker. The remembered rain of the end of the Demetri encounter and the run back to Alice.

And the hat. I remembered the hat.

"Same hat?" Edward asked, looking puzzled and irritated.

I pulled the low-crowned, broad-brimmed microfiber hat from the back pocket of my jeans. "Yep. So, did you get all that?"

"Yeah, except for what you were doing there. Alice?" He somehow – imagine – got the idea that I was less than forthcoming. "What did he tell you?"

"He is right here," I snapped before Alice could say anything. Thing was, I was at a disadvantage with the two of them so I did my own particular brand of communication while they were doing their mental stuff. She'd think at him, he'd plan back and she'd see what would happen. Like their chess games. Strategy was not something either of them had to work at to win.

Abruptly too annoyed to deal with them, I swamped them both with a dose of hysteria, turned on my heel and strode away as they giggled and guffawed behind me. Tossing thoughts in my mind of the Southern Vampire Wars to annoy Edward, I put the rest of my brain to work wondering where Bella had taken herself that afternoon.

J&A J&A J&A

"Let's try this again," Edward said, blowing past me in our hotel room, Alice in tow. "She's seen us having this discussion, but she hasn't seen how it turns out because you haven't decided to talk. So what is it," he went on, and I braced my brain against the inevitable question, "that you're not telling me?"

He smirked, so I knew he wasn't too mad at me for leaving him and Alice earlier. In our room in D.C. he tossed a scrap of paper to the table, as well as a sample of some sort of metal and what appeared to be a printout of some sort. Alice picked up the soft scrap of paper. There was a slightly parchment-crinkly sound to it. But only slightly. As if it used to be parchment, but that had been a decade of handling ago. What is it? I asked him purposefully in my head.

He "heard" me. "Found it in Emmett's pants."

"Ew!" Alice gagged. "That was so not, Edward."

I felt the amusement sliding from our brother and grinned on a slant. "I'm guessin' that it isn't something math-ish or something? Looks like art from here. A column?"

"Ionic," Alice mused, and it's all made out of Italian... Ah. Who?"

"Bella," Edward and I said on the same breath.

"Did she give you one?"

No.

He nodded. "So this part was for our brother. In Italian."

My mind went too fast to stop to the copy of the Divine Comedy Bella had given me for New Years a while back. Sorry, Edward.

His mouth opened and he just stared at me, disbelief rolling off of him. "What. The. Hell?"

I tossed up walls in my head and reached out with my inner sensors to pick up the sliced and dissected amusement and caution that came from Alice as well as the jealousy and return of the anger from Edward. And then – there was nothing.

For just a pulse. Just a breath. I felt nothing at all and I knew Bella was there. Her name flew across my mind but Edward didn't seem to hear that. And then, I felt him and Alice again and I knew Bella had gone. Not that she had lost me – obviously she hadn't – but I just sensed she was gone. I felt a subtle, soft wafting of apologetic feelings from somewhere above me and knew exactly where she was – or had been.

Exhausted for some reason, I collapsed on the bed, my feet still on the floor, and stared at the patterned flocking of the ceiling. I held out my hand and Alice took it without hesitation. I tugged her against my side as I remained on my back. Edward settled into a chair. I had watched vampires among vampires for over a century and a half and had never seen anyone act more human than the Cullens did when there weren't even humans watching.

"All right. I don't know what she's planning, Edward." Alice sniffed with some affected irritation and I pulled her down to press a kiss to her skin before I continued. "Truth. She's been wanting me to help her, though, and she won't tell me why." I rolled my head to meet my brother's narrowed gaze. I could feel the curiosity and mistrust pulsing from him and didn't blame him a bit; I was still hiding a lot from him. Bella had kept us in the dark as to what she was doing with each of us, so I had to figure she had a reason. I viewed her – odd as it was – as the ranking officer in the latest battle versus the Volturi and I would not betray my commanding officer. "I haven't met with her, but we have exchanged messages."

"How?" Alice demanded, smacking my abdomen with her palm. "You said we're being tapped! Our emails and phone calls and everything. I've been so careful, Jazz!"

Edward crossed his legs absently and his voice was distant and cool when he said, "Yes, I'd like to know too."

I checked the walls in my mind. "Morse Code."

Alice protested, sounding offended. "I never saw that!"

In spite of my concern for my mate's feelings, I had to chuckle a little before I propped myself up on my elbows to better see both Alice and Edward. "Our Bella is a very clever girl," I mused out loud for Alice's benefit. "She knows us all and I am thinking she's got something up her sleeves that will either be highly successful or," I stopped and finished the thought in my head: Or get us all set on fire. Sorry, Edward.

"Or fail miserably," Alice concluded, not having heard my words but no slouch in her own right. "So she worked around my visions?"

"Morse Code is invisible, hon, if it's done like Braille. She knows how sensitive our fingertips are and so her coding was real subtle-like. Done through typed lines and –"

A burst of understanding hit me from Edward. "The copies of her thesis proposals and final thesis and all of that. She insisted she had to send it to you hardcopy because she didn't want the Volturi picking it apart. That minx!" Admiration flared from him now, with sharp edges of amazement and love for his wife's ability to work the circumstances to her favor. "You know, she was pretty tricky as a human, too."

Alice and I both had a good laugh at that. "She had her moments," I conceded. "So she's been in touch with me and asking my advice on things."

"Tapping into your history," Alice said. I didn't disabuse her of the notion, but Edward was inhabiting my skull so I kept my focus on the Divine Comedy. "So Edward said he tracked her today? What was she doing?"

"I think she's practicing her recon skills," I ventured, keeping my mind on my idea of her skulking about the hills outside of Volterra to give Edward an idea. "And she's doing it while not meeting with me at all so that we won't be seen to have met if, hon," I went on with a heavy glance at Alice, "Aro gets his hands on any of us."

"Except Bella..." Edward breathed, apparently contemplating something. His emotions were muted now, and I wondered what he had going on in his head. Then, he emoted resolution. "All right, so she's been learning, what, recon skills from you, Jazz?" His flare of doubt did not go unnoticed, but we both let it go. I caught caution on a light undertone and understood that he was playing it safe for the sake of all of us, should Aro decide to shake hands with any of us again. "So what is it with Emmett?"

"There, ya got me," I told my brother. "Your wife never mentioned a thing about Emmett." I was curious and worried both. The idea of her asking Emmett for war planning strategy was just – stupid. And I loved Emmett. I did. The man was a brilliant mathematician and physicist and probably could teach chemistry too, though it wasn't something in which he had a degree. He had a heart bigger than anyone's I knew and the patience of a saint. (Hell, I loved my sister Rosalie, but I probably would have rendered her limbless at least once or twice and Emmett just kept loving her.) Entrusting the safety of our family to Emmett worried me.

Edward was amused and let me know it with a crooked grin. Damned stupid smile was charming and even I knew it. "No, I hear you and agree, but no. I don't know what she's got going with him, but up until I found this paper in his pocket last year, I thought it was about sex."

"What?" Alice erupted, bouncing on the bed, distrust and confusion spiraling all over her. "Sex? Bella and Emmett? I've never even seen that! Is her shield, like, expanding?"

Edward and I shot quick glances at each other and I felt more than saw him shrug. "Honestly, Alice? She and I don't really talk about her shield, lately."

"Oh." Then, "She and I need some girl time, Edward. We need it."

I blinked at her non sequitur, but Edward only smiled. "If you can get her to go someplace, you have my blessing, Alice."

Before he left, just after dark, my brother approached me with an apology spiraling all around him. "Jasper, I need to say –"

No, you don't, I assured him silently. I get it. I felt it all and I get it, I do. If my Alice were pulling some of Bella's stunts, I might not have asked questions first, you know? I offered him half a rueful smile. So we're good, my brother. No worries. Go home to your wife and rock her world.

With a laugh, he left. I hoped he would follow my advice.

Demetri POV

Felix's presence in my personal quarters was not my idea of an amusement. The human I'd just...enjoyed...was far more to my liking, but what of that? Felix's approach was palpable – I hated my gift sometimes – so I finished off the human and rolled her body against the wall. Someone would have to come dispose of her later.

"Demetri?"

"Yes?"

Felix's entrance into the room was as grand as he could make it. Why did he feel the need to be so, how did that phrase go? "Larger than life?" He was even wearing The Cloak. What an affected ass. "What?"

"It's time," he said as if it wasn't something we did regularly. "So come on. I can't do it without you."

"I know," I said, trying not to sound as if I were annoyed. My lord Aro would take exception to that.

"Your cloak?" Felix prompted, indicating his by the sweep of his hand.

I rolled my eyes. "Must I? It's so...dramatic."

He looked past me to where my latest meal lay cooling on the stone floor. "No drama for you?" He inhaled with obvious distaste. "Ha. Please, Demetri. Honesty with yourself first and foremost."

I flashed across to my wardrobe for my own version of The Damned Cloak. "Fine. Let's go." We had a new duty to perform for our masters. Ever since the discovery of Jasper Whitlock of Carlisle Cullen's coven just outside our own walls, we had kept our observations even more pervasive than we had before. A weekly sweep of Volterra and the environs for a start – of course I was required, since I now could track all of them except the Shield – and a perpetual alert on the airports in and near Milan and Rome. When one of those was alerted, we made our forays more frequently.

And Alice Whitlock Cullen had come to Milan, so we were on watch.

On our way out, I indicated to one of the newborns that I needed my room cleared of my recent meal and she said she'd see to it. And then, we heard a disruption in the Circle Chamber. Audience Room. Some of our newer members called it The Cafeteria.

"Give me your hand again," my lord Aro insisted, his voice hissing and dangerous.

Intrigued, Felix and I pushed through the heavy, iron-barred doors into the Chamber and watched from the back. Really, who would approach my lord Aro when he was in such a foul mood? Renata was up there with him. Sad thing for her, but our lord Aro was not going to give her a day off just because he was in a snit.

About what? A nomad had apparently wandered in – his clothes were a sight – and he had news for my lord Aro. He extended his hand again, but this time the nomad was shaking in his faded trousers. Foolish fellow, trying to withhold something from the most comprehensive reader of minds since God himself!

"What are you hiding from me!" My lord Aro glanced up and saw Felix and me and beckoned, holding on to the nomad's hand in one of his and gesturing with the other. "Jog his memory, Felix!"

Happy to be asked to do so in front of so many witnesses – for when my lord Aro was angered, the entire town of Volterra knew of it – Felix strode across the Chamber, self-importance sitting on his rock-like shoulders with visible impact. He bowed. "Yes, my lord?"

"Well? Remind him what he owes me!"

Felix serenely placed his hands on either side of the nomad's unkempt head and twisted. Just a little. Enough so that the vampire shrieked, but nothing cracked audibly. "Do you remember now?" Felix growled.

"I'm telling you everything I know!" the newcomer yelled, his voice thick with fear.

Aro tried cupping the newcomer's face but I could tell that he was unsuccessful. "You must have some sort of protection," my lord Aro muttered. "That must be it. I won't have it. A better one is within my reach. Felix?" He flickered a glance to Felix and, without any ado whatsoever, Felix ripped the vampire's head off.

"Thank you. You may continue on your patrol." My lord Aro nodded to me and smiled shortly.

I bowed. "Thank you. We shall."

Felix and I left the Chamber and moved at our normal speed through the halls of the ancient edifice that was our home. Once outside its walls, I paused and cast my awareness out. Felix, not being thusly gifted, just stood there. I expected to take a mental whiff, as it were, of the town and then move outside the walls to repeat myself. Over and again for about a ten-mile radius, just as we always did.

But it wasn't to be a normal patrol. I sensed...her...and stiffened.

"Who?" Felix whispered as we took off at a fast walk. There were humans around, even in the light rain of this dusky time of day. We had appearances to pretend to maintain.

"Cullen. Alice Whitlock Cullen. The Seer."

Carlisle POV

"Carlisle! Help!"

I was at the clinic in Iron Mountain, Michigan, just at the border of the Ottawa National Forest, when my phone rang. As summer was drawing to its end, the days were growing shorter, but it was still early in the afternoon when I got the call. "Alice?"

"They found me. I mean, I think they found me. I just hope it wasn't Bella. Do you have any idea of –"

"Alice! Focus!" I demanded, moving as quickly as I dared out of the main service hall of the medical clinic and into an empty examining room to shut the door between me and any prying ears. "And remember, we're being watched."

Alice's vocabulary deteriorated in exact proportion to her distress. Then, "Sorry. But Carlisle, they're after us. Well, me. I still can't find her!" Anger and frustration poured through the phone.

"Find who?"

"Her! My slippery little sister! Her! She got away from me and was there on her own – I think, but lord only knows if I'm right. I saw her for a split second and then nothing!"

I took a steadying breath, for I wasn't getting anywhere and I needed to do so. Alice was on the move, I could hear as she ran. A whistling, piercing sound was lightly muffled in between bursts of conversation. "Are you in danger right this minute?" I finally asked. If my heart were alive, it would have been racing with concern for my daughters. "Where are you? Where is she?" It was best if we didn't use her name, I imagined, if the Volturi did happen to be listening.

"We've been caught by their Tracker," Alice informed me, her voice meandering a bit as if she were moving her head around in the birdlike manner she sometimes adopted when under duress. "I didn't see it happening...I'm going to set her hair on fire, Carlisle, I swear."

"Alice," I admonished. Still, I could see her point.

"But I guess the Tracker didn't catch her, because he and that big one are after me!"

I regretted telling Bella anything at all about Volterra. What had she done?

"Oh, there she is!"

"Give me that!" I heard Bella's voice. "Carlisle?"

"How'd you know?"

I heard Bella grunt a little and then I heard Alice say, "Hey! Put me down!" but Bella was running and talking and carrying her sister and did not obey.

"Stay with me," Bella whispered. "Don't call Jasper or Edward. They'll come and get in all kinds of trouble, Dad."

So much for not mentioning her name. It flew out immediately. "And you're not? Isabella Cullen, what have you done? You promised me you wouldn't get caught!"

"Carlisle!" Alice squeaked at a little distance from the phone's sensitive microphone. "You knew about this?"

"Not exactly..." Oh, God, please get them out of there, I prayed silently. "Where were you staying, Isabella?"

"Milan. But I get that we're not going back to the hotel and we're coming home. Okay."

"You will tell me what you thought you were doing, young lady."

"My clothes! Our things!" Alice let fly with another string of blue words that would have brought a smile to my face on any less-serious occasion. "Bella!"

"We'll call and have them shipped," Bella told her sister. "Let's go. Carlisle?"

"I want to see you the moment you have access to a computer. We have to talk."

"Yes, Dad."

I snapped my phone off and stood stock-still in the white and chrome examining room. What had they been doing in Italy? Did Edward and Jasper know they were there? Who had seen them besides Demetri? Had they escaped from Volterra itself? Was Aro going to try to impose a claim on Alice and Jasper?

"Oh, Bella," I whispered so softly that only a vampire could hear me. "What have you done?"

This seemed to be my refrain for at least the past five years.

A/N 2: I had to say thank you to the unknown person who nominated this story for Best Family Award at The Twilight Gem Awards. Please consider voting for this story at the contest:

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