Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with the Twilight series and characters.

Notes: Good news - I officially have the rest of this story roughly drafted out! Less good news - there's more cleanup to be done, so after this I may just be posting one chapter a week until the end. Thanks for everyone sticking with the story and giving reviews!

Chapter 8: Jasper

Things changed in the week that followed Victoria's return. I made damn sure of that.

Victoria showing up and revealing she'd been lurking around Forks for months without any of us catchin' wind of her was a hell of a reality check. In the past, when I was fighting in the wars, no vampire would have been able to intrude on my territory for so long without my knowledge. But living so peacefully with the Cullens has made me complacent.

That complacency came around to bite us in the ass last summer with James. And again last September with Victoria. And then again last week. I should have changed things the instant James and Victoria first passed through, but I was stupid. But I'm not going to let some upstart punk get the drop on my family like that again.

"I'm not sayin' we need to become soldiers, but we need to hone our skills to have a better awareness so we can protect our territory."

The others all nod as I finish telling them my plan to train - I'm not the only one shaken by recent events. "She was watching me for months. I don't want anything like that to happen again," I fight a wince at the wounded quality that's been hidden in Bella's voice this last week.

The girls haven't been telling us the whole story of the Victoria encounter, I'm sure of that. But that's a topic for another day. For today, it's time to just get everyone on board with this. "I've hidden some things I've had in storage, left behind by some old friends. They're vampires whose scent won't be familiar to you. The scent's old though, so it'll fade in a few hours. Better find them quick." I end with a challenging smirk.

Bella perks up at my words, it probably sounds more interesting to the fidgeting newborn than more strength training with Rose and Emmett. Lord knows the girl has ripped up enough shirts and made enough firewood.

"You have friends?" She asks, and I feel a wave of honest curiosity from her. That's... certainly not the part of my instructions I'd expected her to fixate on. The others, lacking my empathic abilities, focus on the poor word choice and start laughing.

"Oh man, Jas, I'm with Bella here - you have friends?" Emmett chuckles. He slaps my back as I roll my eyes and growl.

"Shut up, idiot. You've heard me talk about Peter and Charlotte before."

"What are they like?" Bella's curiosity has ramped up even stronger, and I don't bother to fight the warmth that fills me chest at her interest in my friends.

"Someday we can all go meet them. They'd probably get a kick out of you lot."

Bella grins then jumps up. "I'm going to find their stuff first. And then I get to pick the movie for tonight!" And she's off, crashing into the forest with the grace of a puppy. Well, honestly she's pretty damn graceful now, but her eagerness is still puppy-like. Emmett barrels after her and Rose follows with her game-face on. None of them can resist a good challenge. Especially not with the threat of being subjected to Bella's taste in movies hanging over them.

As for me, I take out my book and start reading again, letting the dim sensation of the excitement of the hunt from the others wash over me as they run around the fringes of my awareness. Bella's excitement, in particular, allows me to relax enough to focus on my book - the guilt and regret and lingering fear I've felt since Victoria's visit fading away.

…..

"I can't believe you have some guy's dirty underwear just lying around," Bella laughs, as she tries to pick the shredded remains of Peter's boxers out of her nails.

"You'll learn when you meet him, that it's best to listen to Peter," I say, grabbing her hand and helping her get the fabric off her skin. It does smell a bit too much like parts of Peter I'd rather not smell. And if I find the idea of the smell clinging to Bella's hands disturbing, well… no one here has to know.

"So, what? He just handed you a bag of his unmentionables, told you to hang onto it and you said okay?" Bella's face is a prime example of exasperated disbelief.

"Pretty much," I admit.

"Jasper." Bella's hands turn in my grasp and grab my own. She leans forward, staring into my eyes and I dimly register a sudden surge of excitement coming from her. "I HAVE to meet him."

Well fuck me.

Now that I consider it, I'm slightly terrified of whatever explosive combination Bella and Peter might make.

….

"...did you know? That she'd be here?"

Emmett and I both pause just outside the back door as we hear Bella's voice through the doorway. I share a look with my brother and the curiosity in his face matches my own. With unspoken coordination, we both remain quietly outside the house listening in.

"I see," Bella speaks again. She must be talking on the phone, an unusual event in and of itself. But given the shadow of Victoria's visit hanging over us, I don't need more than one guess to figure out who must have called for her. I admit, I've been wondering myself if Alice had seen Victoria's arrival. From what Rosalie and Bella had told us, it seemed the psychotic woman's actions were much more premeditated this time around.

"I guess. Yeah." The newborn's emotions are too subdued for me to pick up on many specifics, but I can feel enough to know that Bella isn't sure how to take whatever Alice is saying. "Sure. Bye, Alice."

The click of a phone signals the end of the conversation and Emmett and I both reach for the door at once. Once inside, we quickly spot both Bella and Rose perched on the kitchen counter. Rose is carefully putting the phone away in its cradle while Bella frowns towards the floor.

"What'd Alice say?" Emmett shows no hesitation to admit we were eavesdropping as he heads over to the girls.

"She saw Victoria coming. She didn't see many details but was able to tell that things would work out. So... she didn't tell us," Bella's voice is disturbingly monotone.

"Things did work out," Rose agrees, patting the smaller girl's knee. "Doesn't mean we won't give Alice some grief later on for not warning us."

"Damn straight!" Emmett booms.

Years of being around the pixie and dealing with her visions has me instinctively speaking out in defense of Alice. "Alice has her reasons when she keeps quiet about visions. She just forgets sometimes that we don't all see those reasons. Or agree with them"

Rose is glaring at me. I'm too busy staring at Bella to see it, but I can feel the heat of it in her emotions. I fight the urge to wince - just because it's not a truth anyone likes doesn't mean it's not still a truth. "I get it," Bella says quietly. She still won't look up at us as her fingers tear a hole in her pants. Right now, she'd the picture perfect depiction of a subdued puppy.

My hands clench at my sides as I fight the urge to scream. I force myself to calm before I speak again. "Alice hates pinecones."

And there it is. Bella's gaze locked on my own as she gives me a tentative smile.

"We can find lots of those!" Emmett crows, clapping me on the shoulder and beckoning the girls to get up off of the counter top.

Without any more debate or discussion, all four of us head out to collect a pile of pinecones. As our collection of pinecones grows, Emmett and Bella brainstorm ways to put them in Alice's path once she finally arrives. It's a petty revenge, just the kind that fits a disagreement between siblings. The pixie will suffer a bit for keeping her silence, but it seems like the others have already forgiven her. Remembering the horror I felt when Rose told me about the fight in the woods, I wonder when I'll be able to do the same.

…..

Eventually the novelty of my training begins to wear off. Rose, Emmett and Bella seem more resigned than excited whenever I throw off their day with an impromptu scavenger hunt, ambush or other 'goddamn evil' (Emmett's words, not mine) training exercise. Which is why today I've promised no surprises or exercises.

As soon as I promised that, Rose pulled Emmett out of the house and into the Jeep. I ran Bella around the woods for a few hours, riling her up until she took down an elk and practically ripped it in two in her excitement to eat. And when the two of us settled down to watch a movie, I didn't even bring up the possibility of her doing one of the various strength control exercises we'd started challenging her with. Instead, we just watched the movie in silence, relaxing as the familiar scenes flicker across the screen.

"So, where'd you stand on the whole 'ceding from the Union' thing?"

I turn to stare at Bella in surprise at the non-sequitur. But, hell if I won't answer her random questions - her curiosity can be quite entertaining. "I didn't have much of a stance on it. While some fought because of any cause or set of beliefs, I fought because the war showed up on my doorstep. I don't remember much from before I was turned, but I can tell you that much."

Bella hums thoughtfully and stares back at the television set for all of five seconds before she looks back at me and asks a follow-up question, "Corsets, yay or nay?"

I project a wave of amusement at her. "Can't say I've ever tried one."

There's a pillow in my face and a petulant newborn gnawing on my finger. She's not breaking skin, which my 'newborn-Bella' mental behavioral encyclopedia tells me is just her equivalent of projecting amusement.

"Nhaw vut assit," she tries to speak around the finger. Then she lets go and tries again, "Not what I asked. Jerk."

"Darlin', that's exactly what you asked," I give her my best smirk and move my hand out of chomping range. Bella just sniffs and gives a clumsy hair flip in my direction.

"You should have Rose practice that move more with you if you want it to be effective." The girl stills. Then flips her hair in an exaggerated manner that ends with my having a faceful of damp brown strands. We're both laughing as I separate her hair from my face.

"Have you ever seen the musical?" She asks, once we've both calmed down.

"What musical?"

Bella smiles over at me. "Civil War. The Musical."

I snort and roll my eyes. "No way in hell is that a real thing." Then I'm almost drowning in smug glee radiating from the girl beside me. The kind of smugness I always feel from my sisters when they want to dance around yelling 'I'm right and you're wrong'. I let out a deep sigh and close my eyes.

"It's a real thing, isn't it?"

A giggle from the girl and a gleeful "Yep!" leaves me to wonder what kind of crazy person thought that up. A musical about a traumatizing war? Fuck.

"It's quite serious, actually." Bella says quietly, probably realizing how disgusted I am with this revelation. "My mom took me to see it when I was younger. I learned more about what a seriously messed up time it was from that musical than I ever did in history class." I sigh again. Many rounds of high school education have taught me that 'better than history class' is a low bar.

Bella pats my knee and says in a patronizingly sweet tone, "Don't worry, I'm sure we can find the CD."

Oh, hell no.

I lunge over to her and toss her off the couch. She lands on the ground in a pile of blankets we use for our Bella-dictated cuddle parties. She's laughing and jumping up. Then she opens her mouth and sings loudly and off tune something about 'damn Yankees' before barreling into me so hard the couch flips over. We both skid into the entryway of the house.

By the time Emmett and Rose return an hour later, Bella is lounging around in the wreckage of the dining room table as I finish carrying the broken sofa, lounge chair and coffee table outside to the woodshed. We have a lot of work to do to fix all of this, but the contentment radiating off of Bella is so calming I really can't bring myself to give a damn.

Rose just stares at the empty room and calls out for Emmett, "Em, looks like you have a new project."

Then with nothing more than a passing nod in my direction where I'm holding half the coffee table, Rose is pulling up Bella and they're both disappearing into Bella's room. As it closes I hear Rose begin to tell Bella that they are stepping up their getting dressed training followed by a loud groan from the newborn.

…..

Emmett and I spend the rest of the daylight hours cleaning up the broken furniture and starting in on fixing the sofa in the woodshed. We work well together now, after months of repairing furniture that can't quite handle newborn enthusiasm. It's a relaxing way to spend time with Emmett as well - manual labor always seems to lull Emmett into a calm sense of tranquility.

"This is nice," Emmett says, breaking the silence for something other than a short 'pass the hammer' or 'hold this down' for the first time all evening.

"Fixin' furniture?" I ask as I finish fitting a solid board to replace the one that was just splinters.

I hear Emmett snort. "You know what I mean. This!" Emmett igestures around the wood shack with his hammer.

"Again - fixin' furniture?"

The hammer is easy to dodge. Emmett telegraphs his moves far to clearly. Another thing for us to work on.

"Don't be a jerk, bro. I mean being out here. The four of us. It's…" the man trails off, staring through the small window towards the house before continuing. "We've known each other for decades, but I feel like we've gotten closer these last six months than we ever did in the years before this."

"Nothing like a demanding newborn to force people together," I say. Honestly, I'd noticed the same thing While Emm, Rose and I had gotten along in the past, we've never spent so much time together. But now we know each other's habits, share our kills, and seek out each other's company daily.

"Rose, well, you know she's never really been comfortable hunting." I had known it. Or guessed it, at least. "She didn't like to eat, even around me."

"Oh?" I ask, that was news. And not at all what she was like lately, which probably is what Emmett's getting at.

"She hunts with us now. She eats with us. It's nice. It's new." There is such a strong sense of joy and love from Emmett as he talks about his lover, I have a hard time thinking for a moment.

"Bella, she likes the hunt," I say. "And she likes hunting with us. It could be that seeing her instinctive joy when she hunts has made Rose more comfortable."

Emmett's nodding at my words. Gesturing broadly as he agrees, "Alice and Esme, they're both more solitary hunters as well. They usually head off alone at the tail end of a hunt and stay clean. Rose's never really seen a girl roll around in mud and blood while hunting before this."

"True. Not sure if it's a good sign that we're seein' a barely stable newborn vampire as a role model, though." I state wryly. Emmett laughs at my statement and agrees, "She's a great one though. She's …. Freer here, I think. Now that she's more herself again, she seems a lot more relaxed than we ever really saw her. And I think Rose is too."

Emmett's totally correct - everyone's emotions have been much mellower overall out here. At least, when Bella isn't being a brat and causing trouble. "It is nice." Because what else can I do but agree with the truth?

….

Dawn's approaching by the time Emmett and I get bored fixing furniture and return back to the house. We've fixed the couch and sofa chair and brought both back with us. The rest can wait for another time - I mean, really, what do we need with a kitchen table?

The girls are still closed off in Bella's room and I automatically reach out to sense their emotional states as I sit down with Emmett as he puts a Playstation disc into the console and tosses me a controller. Pleased, smug, excited, fond, slightly frustrated. Feels like the lessons must be doing well. Emmett turns the volume on the TV up as the game starts - a habit that that allows more privacy by drowning out the girls' hushed conversation.

We spend the next few hours beating the crap out of each other. Virtually, of course. For now. I really do need to do something about how easy Emmett is to read when he's fighting in real life, so I plot new training exercises in the back of my mind while the matches continue on. We're tied 6-6 when Rose throws open the door to Bella's room and holds out her arms. I pause the game after taking a cheap shot at Emmett's avatar.

"Gentlemen," Rosalie begins, arching an elegant eyebrow at the two of us.

We both wait for her to continue, but she seems to be enjoying drawing out the silence. I cave in first, "Yes, ma'am?" I ask her, throwing every ounce of southern charm I still have into my tone. It never seems to phase Rose but it is fun to try sometimes.

As expected she just raises her eyebrow higher. But she does continue talking, "Gentlemen, it is my honor to present miss Isabella Swan Cullen." I can't even deny the jolt of excitement I felt hearing the name Cullen tacked on after the Swan. Emmett can't hide it either. Even without my empathy I'm sure I'd be able to feel the wave of happiness that bursts from him. "Bring her out!" He hollers, vibrating on the couch, which creaks ominously.

Then Bella is out of the room and standing in front of us. Hair brushed and braided, light makeup framing her golden eyes, and a very flattering forest green dress hugging her curves. Shit, I hurriedly return my eyes up to the girl's face from where it had been raking down her body.

Let's not go there, Jasper.

She's biting her lip as Emmett lets out a wolf whistle. And I'm totally fuckin' sincere when I meet her eyes and admit, "Lookin' beautiful, darlin'."

"Thanks," Her embarrassment and pleasure fills the room, and I project my feelings of affection out so she can feel there's nothing to be embarrassed by. Not for her, at least.

"There's more," Rose states, disappearing into Bella's room for a flash before coming out with a piece of paper.

"Ooh! Is that the secret trip?" Emmett asks, making a grabbing motion with his hands. Rose doesn't hand the mystery paper over.

"What secret?" Bella and I both ask at once.

"I picked something up at the post office earlier today and made Emmett wait in the car. He's been trying to figure it what I got ever since." Rose says with a grin. Then she flips the paper around so we can all see it. It begins: 'Isabella Swan Cullen has been formally adopted into the household of Carlisle and Esme Cullen...'

Adoption papers.

Very official adoption papers. We all have had them before, but this is Bella's first batch. I look over to her, where she stands and stares at the paper in silence. Her emotions are subdued, but I can feel relief and happiness warring with a powerful sadness. I can understand why - she may Cullen now, but that also means she's no longer a Swan.

After a long moment she puts a smile on her face. Emmett lets out a loud whoop and scoops the girl in his arms, swinging her around and around. And she keeps smiling as Rose tries to fix her mussed hair, and as I give her a quick hug. She keeps smiling for the rest of the night while we celebrate.

But that soft sadness underpinning her joy isn't something I can forget.