I've decided to start posting shorter chapters more frequently as it fits my current schedule better. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for the reviews! :)

LEILA POV

"Jasper you have to do this for Alice." I was trying to convince him that my anniversary plan was perfect. Getting him away from Alice to conspire had been easy enough. They had just gone hunting the day before so I knew Alice would not want to go again. They were together in their room and I was sitting on the back porch in the sunshine. I just started thinking about my thirst. It was always there. The severity of it fluctuated, but if I thought about it at all it was instantly unbearable. I heard a window open and I smiled as Jasper landed on the lawn a dozen yards from me.

"I believe you called," was his ironic greeting.

"I'm starving." I told him simply. With a gentlemanly flourish he indicated that I should proceed him into the woods. Since all I could really think about now was being thirsty, I decided I should hunt before I got down to what I had really wanted him for. It had been quick but almost satisfying. Now I was sitting on a boulder in the clearing that I had decided was the perfect spot for his anniversary.

He paced in front of me, hands behind his steel spine as he thought about what I had just said with a frown on his face. "Leila, I would feel totally stupid." He looked so pained I almost laughed. "How do you even know that Alice would like it. I mean, she would probably laugh her head off at me." I rolled my eyes and flipped of the rock. "Do you really think that Alice would ever laugh at you? Believe me when I say that if you will do this it will end very well for you." I saw the moment he gave in. "Okay. What should I do?"

I had been paying attention to Alice for the past week and so I had picked up a lot of what she wished for her anniversary. Surprisingly her biggest wish was just that it would matter as much to Jasper as it did to her. Secondly, she wanted him to sing to her. That had perplexed me somewhat, because as far as I knew Jasper did not have any musical inclinations. I tried poaching her powers from afar but it was so much harder and I could barely see anything. I had to be very careful, but I managed contact with her enough times that I saw what would be a winner and what would fail. So now all I had to do was get Jasper to do everything right.

"Okay, when the sun is coming up, before she says anything, you have to tell her Happy Anniversary first. That will absolutely thrill her that you find it important. That's what she really wants; you to find it important. Just out of curiosity, why don't you think your wedding anniversary is a big deal?" He shifted uncomfortably and looked to the side and then up to the sky. "Oh come on Jasper! You love her more than I've ever seen someone love another person, so why does this not matter?"

He sighed in resignation. "It's not that I don't care. I just don't see what the big deal is. It's a human celebration because the number of years they have together is so limited, they have to celebrate the few they have together. We're not limited in our time together and every day is equally special." The inadvertent romanticism in his thinking made me smile. "To me, I don't see how May 7th is greater than February 9th or September 13th. Every day with Alice is the greatest celebration of life to me."

I sighed at how sweet he was. "See, that's all that matters. She's the most important thing to you, so your anniversary doesn't have to matter that much to you, it just matters that it's important to her."

I quickly mapped out the whole scenario for him. "In the early afternoon, tell her you want to go out with her. She'll see that you want to take her out but she won't be able to see where. She will see what she should wear. It's not fair to take away her ability to dress appropriately; it will ruin everything if she is obsessing about her clothes." I told him step by step everything to do to ensure her utter happiness. "Trust me Jasper if she could she would be in tears at the end. In a good way." I tacked on quickly when he looked at me askance.

"We should get home soon." I dusted off my butt and turned in the direction of the house. "I'll set up everything ahead of time and be here to turn it on right before you bring her." We ran at a relaxed pace and just before jumping the river he smiled slightly. "Thank you Leila. I always get her a present and she likes it, but I always feel like she's still waiting for something else. If this works I'll owe you."

"Oh, you'll owe me big. Don't think about it. It will make me almost as happy as it will make her."

Alice was sitting on the back steps with a suspicious look. I smiled innocently at her as I silently passed into the house. She rose to hug Jasper and I heard her ask him, "What did you do besides hunt? And why did I only see her hunt very quickly before my vision was literally blanked out?" Her voice was both seductive and petulant. I glanced at Jasper with a warning in my eyes for him not to give into her.

ESME POV

Leila was up to something. Something big. She wouldn't say a word or even let on that she was doing anything. But I had been a mama long enough to know that she was definitely up to something. Jasper was in cahoots with her. They spent too much time together when Alice was not around talking in very quiet tones. She would show him papers and once I had seen her give him her iPod to listen to. What the heck was going on? My curiosity was eating me. I had to find out what she was up to.

Today Alice had taken Bella & Renesmee to Seattle because Nessie had decided she had to go get something important. Alice didn't need an excuse to shop so she was thrilled. Bella went begrudgingly but it was just because she couldn't resist her daughter's adorable pleading.

Rosalie was in the garage fixing something on Emmett's jeep while he just sat next to her holding it up and talking incessantly. Jasper was... I wasn't sure actually. He wasn't at home but he hadn't said where he was headed either. He just slipped out the door moments after Alice drove away.

Edward must have been down at his cottage because I hadn't seen him yet. And Carlisle was of course at work. Now I had a clear coast. I walked quietly upstairs and approached Leila's room slowly. I didn't want to be one of those rude pushy mothers that always had to know everything, but at the same time I was too curious to resist. Before I could even give a courtesy knock, the door was yanked open by a grinning Leila. "Perfect! Everyone's gone now. I've been dying to tell you but I had to wait til they were all gone."

She yanked me into her room over to the small side table she had cleared to use as a temporary desk. Scattered over it were a handful of colored pencil drawings and I looked in awe at the intricate detailing to them. They were absolutely beautiful.

"We only have three days to get this all together and set up. I'm gonna make Emmett help, but I need you to help me draw out how to structure the frame and then I'll make it. What do you think?" She looked at me eagerly.

"It's beautiful, but what is it for?" Her laugh was light and happy. "It's for Jasper and Alice's anniversary. I decided to help him make it awesome. He'll do it, but not without some prodding from me. Anyway, I'm keeping Alice from seeing anything so the only thing I need you to do is decide not to help me every time you think of what we're doing." She shuffled some of the papers and pulled out one from the bottom of the stack. "Ah-hah. This is what the finished product will look like if I can somehow get it together." It was a small meadow-like clearing and it had been decorated to resemble a fairy's home.

"Oh my goodness Leila. How did you think this up?" She just smiled mysteriously and shrugged. "It came to me. So do you think with you directing design and me and Emmett working we can get it done?"

"Of course. But just out of curiosity, what is it exactly that you will have to prod Jasper into doing?"

"Oh you'll see. All in good time."

Well this should prove to be very interesting. It had been awhile since I had a new challenge that I hadn't personally dreamed up. Leila went to her closet and I heard her moving around and the scrape of hangers against the pole. "Oh mom; don't say anything to Emmett yet. We'll just have to give him directions to blindly build and move things or else he'll spoil the surprise. 'Kay?"

I couldn't respond. I was standing there in stupefaction. Had she really just called me mom? I put my hands to my face as I smiled, the feelings washing over me so indescribably warm and amazing.

"Esme?" She looked out of the closet door as she pulled a new shirt over her perfect torso. "Oh I thought you left because you didn't answer." I mutely shook my head, the silly smile still in place."So are you cool with doing this?"

I nodded. "Oh, uh, yes, yes of course. It would be great." I hurriedly assured her. She tied her hair back quickly as she crossed back across the room. "Do you think there's a bigger place we could use though? This table is ridiculously tiny."

"Sure. We can use my office. I have an architect's drawing board in there." The papers were swept into a neat stack at my words and she inclined her head. "After you then."

We walked humanly, as she always referred to slow movements, down the hallway. As we turned into my office door she stopped and looked at me. "Oh god I'm so stupid." I looked back at her alarmed. There was utter self loathing in her voice. "Why on earth would you say that?" I asked her.

"The reason you didn't answer before. I upset you right? I didn't mean to call you mom. It just kind of came out. I'm sorry." She was distressed and I shook my head in denial. Placing my hands on her shoulders, I looked directly into her eyes.

"You listen to me Leila. You most certainly did not upset me. You merely surprised me. It took all the other ones years to think of me as their mother. And more time after that to refer to me as such. To this day I am mostly called Esme. Believe me when I tell you there is nothing on earth I would rather be called than mom. If you think of me as your mother, that is the greatest gift you could ever give to me."

She smiled hesitantly. "Are you sure?" Her question sounded just like a little girl afraid of rejection and I touched her cheek. "I am more than positive." She gnawed on her lower lip for a second and then sighed. "After we do this for Alice and Jasper, I want to tell you stuff about my life before. 'Kay?"

I nodded. "Okay."