Alexei: Two updates in one day?! Unheard of!

So, I played Call of Duty for the first time ever instead of typing up this chapter, lol. It was fun and made me miss when I used to play Halo all of the time, but sadly reality called and I couldn't spend my life being a couch potato. As it is, I typed this entire fic sparatically anyway. Hopefully I can update more regularly until It's all done and did.

Ah! The main conflict! It shall begin! I'm actually nervous. This was an extremely tense chapter to write. I mean, as I was writing it, my own anticipation skyrocketed... it's a crazy experience when what I'm writing effects me so much, especially because I know what I'm writing and whot exactly is going to happen... Normally I feel a bit detached.

Anyway...

WARNING! This chapter does contain some slightly awkward content. Nothing rated M of course, but none-the-less...

I feel like the above warning was a bit of a spoiler for this chapter.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"This is an incredibly peculiar developement." Carlisle was examining my face with an earnest look of concentration gracing his features. "I've never even heard of it. In any vampire."

"Do you think it could be a gift?" Jasper was standing beside where I sat on a psuedo examination table, him arms crossed and a serious look on his face.

I huffed at him. "Having the weird ability to cry would be a worse gift than super fantastic self control, Jasper. I don't even want to consider that." I heard Edward chuckling from across the house with his wife. Of course he would find my complaint funny. Not like I was talking about Bella or anything.

"Even if it is what you consider a 'lame' gift, it certainly is something." Hearing the word "lame" come out of Carlisle's mouth was the weirdest thing I had ever experienced. Maybe he only put it that way because I was one of two people in the house who were still teenagers, in the human sense. He didn't talk to Bella like that, though... "From what I gathered from the residue on Jasper's shirt, it looks like your eyes just developed a momentary surplus of venom." From emotion?

"So, what your saying is I don't have any gift, I just have some sort of a weird vampiric genetic defect?" Jasper smirked at my blatantly put question.

"Well, I wouldn't put it like that," Carlisle looked a bit sheepish. "Though it is a bit ironic that you'd be able to physically express such emotion with Jasper's ability."

My forehead crinkled in suspicious confusion. Carlisle was definitely implying something. "How exactly is that ironic?"

He waved me off, changing the subject. "It's nothing, just a personal thought, however, whether this new ability is the result of natural causes or truly a developing gift has yet to be seen. Have any other unusual things been happening?"

Immediately, the whole seeing-colors-around-people thing popped into my head, but it wasn't something I wanted to share with Carlisle until I personally examined it a bit more. "Nothing out of the ordinary somes to mind," I said aloud to my ward.

"Hmm," Carlisle seemed to believe me without hesitation, and it almost made me feel bad for betraying such an open, innocent trust. "Well, if anything does happen, do not hesitate to let me know. Though I can't tell you what it all means, I'm posative that this isn't just some natural fluke."

Carlisle went off to his office, probably to go research either about my strange new ability or Renesmee's dangerous growth.

I hopped off the table and started behind him but Jasper grabbed my wrist stopping me.

"You do that a lot." I murmured to him.

"Do what?"

"Grab me." He raised a blond eyebrow at my observation

He didn't take the bait. "Why did you lie to Carlisle?" He asked in a low voice, not because he sounded mad, but because he didn't want anyone else hearing us. He didn't tell Carlisle I was lying, so obviously he wasn't too worried about it.

"It's nothing," I retorted quietly.

"It's something enough to make you feel incredibly guilty." He hadn't let go of me yet. I couldn't escape him.

"I just... feel bad for lying to Carlisle." I admitted.

"What were you trying to hide?" He didn't seem to be prying, just curious.

I bit my lip. "I'm not quite sure myself. It might just be, as Carlisle put it, a fluke."

"Will you tell me?"

I swear I was going to just melt like putty from his nearness. I definitly would have told him every detail since the first time it happened on the field that first day we met, but luckily we were interuppted, by Edward calling us from across the house.

I used this chance to escape, and Jasper didn't stop me this time, but he did follow. When I reached Edward, I was greeted by the sight of Bella holding an ornately carved, ancient wooden box inlaid with gold and mother-of-gold, ornamented with a rainbow of gemstones. It was awfully gaudy in my opinion.

"What's going on?" Jasper asked from behind me.

"Bella just got a wedding present," Edward said gravely. It didn't seem too out of the ordinary to me. Carlisled and the others joined us as he continued. "It's from Aro."

I flinched at the name. The Volturi.

The present itself was not overtly threatening. Extravagant, yes, almost frightening in that very extravagance now that I knew who it was from. The true threat was in the parting line of Aro's congratulatory note, which Bella silently showed us, written in black in on a square of heavy, plain white paper in what I assumed was Aro's own hand:

I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen and Carlisle's newborn charge in person.

I took a step back, like the note were physically going to attack me.

Me? He wants me to go with Bella to see him?

The unsubtle reminder in Aro's note interesting me more than the box. Not only did they need to see Bella to make sure she was truly immortal, but, as I seemed to have forgotten, I was still technically in need of a trial. And it needed to happen soon.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII III

The shrill sound of Edward's cell phone ringing reached my ears. He answered on the first ring.

"Come, bring Carlisle," Bella trilled fast from the other end of the line. "I saw Irina, and she saw me, but then I think she saw Jacob and she got mad and ran away, I think. She hasn't shown up here, but she looked pretty upset so maybe she will. If she doesn't you and Carlisle have to go after her and talk to her. I feel so bad."

He was already leaving with Carlisle as he assured her, "We'll be there in half a minute."

The house was silent as I turned to my constant companion and whispered. "I don't feel good about this."

"Neither do I," Jasper replied.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIII

Carlisle and Edward hadn't been able to catch up with Irina before her trail disappeared into the sound. They'd swum to the other bank to see if her trail had picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of her for miles in either direction on the eastern shore.

Carlisled called Tanya with the disappointing news. She and Kate hadn't seen Irina since they'd decided to come to Bella's wedding, and they were distraught that Irina had come so close yet not returned home; it wasn't easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary the separation might be. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losingtheir mother so many centuries ago.

Alice was able to catch a few glimpses of Irina's immediate future, nothing too concrete. She wasn't going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture was hazy. All Alice could see was that Irina was visibly upset; she wandered into the snow-swathed wilderness with a devistated expression. She mad no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless grieving.

Days passed and Irina and her pain moved to the back of everyone's minds. There were more important things to think of now. I would be leaving with Bella for Italy in just a few days.

Just me and Bella.

I shuddered. I didn't know if I would even come back.

After Italy, we would all be traveling to South America to find information on a possible lead for Renensmee and her growth.

It happened that night. Edward and Bella had stayed longer with the rest of us instead of going back to their cottage, so Renesmee was curled up on the sofa, her breathing slow and heavy with sleep, and her tangled curls splayed wildly around her face. The reason for their lingering was Edward being stuck with Carlisle, deep in their planning session.

Meanwhile, Emmett and Jasper were more excited about planning the hunting possibilities. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and Panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda. Esme, Bella, and Rosalie were planning what they would pack. Jacob was off with Sam's pack, setting things up for his own absence.

Alice moved slowly around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the already perfect immaculate space, straightening Esme's perfectly hung garlands. She was recentering Esme's vases on the console at the moment. I could tell from the way her face fluctuated, aware then blank then aware again, that she was searching the future. I assumed she was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob and Renensmee made in her vision as to what was waiting for everyone in South America.

She lifted one crystal vase that was filled with whte and red rosed and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Alice seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction to her lack of vision tonight.

Staring at Jasper, I didn't see it when the vase slipped from Alice's fingers. I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into ten thousand diamond shards against the edge of the kitchen's marble floor.

We were all perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced ans skittered in every direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice's back.

My first thought was that Alice was playing some sort of a trick on us, because there was no way that Alice could have dropped the vase by accident. I could have darted across the room to catch the vase in plenty of time myself, if I hadn't assumed she would get it, an how could it fall through her fingers in the first place?

I'd never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.

And then she was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn't exist. That's when I saw it. The most horrible murcky brown leeking out of her.

Her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and agony of her gaze.

I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, hald-choked sound.

There was only silence from everyone else.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"They're coming for us," Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."

Silence.

I was the quickest to understand. Maybe it was my fear for them that caused it, but I knew what she meant. I barely heard the confermation of my feaars. I didn't need it. I already knew.

"The Volturi," Alice moaned.

"All of them," Edward groaned at the same time.

"Why?" Alice whispered to herself. "How?"

"When?" Edward whispered.

"Why?" Esme echoed.

"When?" Jasper repeated Edward in a voice like splintering ice. I was surprised to find him immediately near me, wrapping his arms around me protectively.

Alice's eyes didn't blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held onto her expression of horror.

"Not long," she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. "There's snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month.

"Why?" Carlisle was the one to ask this time.

Esme answered. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see-"

"This isn't about Bella," Alice said hollowly. "They're all coming: Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives."

"The wives never leave the tower," Jasper contradicted her, sounding almost desperate. His hold on me tightened. "Never. Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never."

"They're coming now," Edward whispered. "There are so many of us. They must want to make sure that..."

Suddenly, it clicked.

"Irina," I whispered. The entire room stared at me. "Irina... She saw Bella hunting that day with Jacob and..."

"Renesmee," Bella finished in horror.

Irina... The orphaned sisters... Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the Volturi's justice had made Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.

Jasper had said the words himself. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. The immortal children; The unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo.

With Irena's past, how could she apply any other reading to what she'd seen that day in the narrow field? She had not been close enough to hear Renesmee's heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body. Renesmee's rosy cheeks could have been a trick on our part for all she knew.

After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina's point of view, maybe this meant nothing was beyond us...

Irina, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness; not mourning Laurent, after all, but knowing it was her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would happen to them if she did. Apparently her conscious had won out over the centuries of friendship.

And the Volturi's reaction to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was already decided.

Bella turned and draped herself over Renesmee's sleeping body, covering her daughter and burying her face in her curls.

"Think of what she saw that afternoon," she said in a low voice. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee look like?"

Everything was silent as the others caught up to where Bella and I already were.

"An immortal child," Carlisle whispered.

"She's wrong!" I spurted out. "Renesmee was born, not bitten. She grows every single day..."

The room seemed to get colder, and no one spoke for a long time.

"What can we do?" Bella demanded.

It was Emmett who answered her rhetorical question.

"We fight," he said calmly.

"We can't win," Jasper growled. I felt it reverberate throughout my body as his own curved protectively over mine. I don't think I could have let him go, even if I wanted to. I was scared.

"Well, we can't run," Emmett argued, making a noise of disgust. "Not with Demetri around." I knew instinctively that he was not upset by the idea of the Volturi tracker, but by the idea of running away. "And I don't know that we can't win," He continued. "There are a few options to consider. We don't have to fight alone."

My head snapped toward him at that. "I won't sentence the Quileutes to death, Emmett." Just the thought of Seth getting hurt... or even Leah, and as much as I would hate to admit it, Jacob.

"Chill, Bree. Be realistic. Do you think Jacob or Sam would ignore an invasion? Even if it wasn't about Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro knows about our alliance with the pack now, too. However, I was actually thinking about our other friends." We all blinked at him. "I'm not saying they have to fight with us. If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate, so that they would stop and listen.

Esme nodded in agreement. "We can ask that much of our friends. Just to witness."

Everyone agreed that that was the thing to do, and broke off into seperate groups to make lists of who to ask, and plans of how to do it. Jasper and I ended up in my bedroom, just sitting there. Occationally, he would reach out to me, but then pull back before I could reach back.

We sat there, silent. I could feel the fear, just creaping up into me. slowly consuming any of the happier emotions that ghosted about. I didn't want to die. Not with a stable family willing to accept me, or a little girl who I thought of as a little sister, or a best friend who quite literally ran circles around me, or...

Or a man that, until now, I hadn't fully realized I was in love with.

Jasper shifted, causing me to look up at him. He was staring at me, he had been doing so since we sat down. It should have unnerved me, but it had become a regular thing in the past weeks.

"Is something wrong?" Besides the obvious?

"No..." He just kept looking at me, unnerving me, unwinding me. My breath caught in my throat. "I'm trying to decide if the risk is worth it."

"What?"

He stood, looming over me. My chest tightened, and if I had been human, my heart would have been pounding in it. "The risk."

He was too close, I couldn't focus. "What risk?" I swallowed.

He leaned down, trapping me by placing his hands firmly on either side of me, fisting the unused blankets on my bed. I had to lean back to give myself enough space to breath. Not that I needed to. "The risk of losing you."

The house was silent. Was everyone listening? Were they even here at all? Did Jasper care if they got the wrong impression from his words? I'm sure I got the wrong impression from them. He couldn't mean what I thought he meant. Not in this situation. Right?

Or was it because of this situation that he's admitting to it.

I internally shook my head. Of course not. He didn't feel like I did.

But that look was telling me otherwise. That intense, scared, hot look. I felt myself tremble as he leaned in, his face getting uncomfortably close. I could feel it in my stomach, and my chest, and toes as his lips met mine. The only thing I couldn't feel it in was my brain. I don't even think my brain was capable of feeling anything, or even thinking at that time. He was trembling too, as nervous as I was, but something sparked. The constant tingling in my stomach warmed, slow and deep. I almost couldn't take it.

My eyes fluttered and I could see it again. That color seeping out of Jasper and surrounding me. This time it looked like a deep red, the color of blood and evoking similar reactions in me that blood did. Only I didn't want to devour Jasper in the sense that I wanted to devour him in the sense that...

Oh, if only I could blush.

I'd blame it on being a newborn, except that now I was already past the year mark. Maybe it was because I was stuck in the body of a sixteen year old girl.

Horomones was a good excuse.

Jasper growled, as I pulled away, though only enough to murmur, "What are we doing?"

"You know what we're doing." He said it like a fact, like there was no question. Like we didn't just go from being two perfectly civil friend-like people, to all over each other.

Well, he was all over me, really.

"I know," I said, between long kisses. "I guess... I meant 'why'."

He stopped, pulling completely away. I immediately missed the contact, yearned for it. "Because it was going to happen anyway. That day in the field... What Alice saw..."

"She saw this?!" Of course I was embarrassed at that.

"Not specifically," he ran his hand through his hair, a familiar gesture to me. "I fought it. I wasn't going to let her one vision change what I felt for her, even if it was different from how Carlisle felt about Esme, or how Edward felt about Bella. At first it was easy, because you were so frustrating, but slowly I just... I tried really hard, but eventually... I just didn't want to fight it anymore. Alice saw us. Together." He paused before saying something that caused the heat in me to spike. "Mated."

He couldn't say anything else. I was there, all over him. His arms wrapped around me, holding me against him. It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire. I could feel every muscle of his long, lean body; every angle and every plane. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensative fingertips.

My skin was so sensative under his hands, too.

There was nothing else in the world but him now, his arms curled around me, his honey breath on my face, his lips exploring mine. He pulled me against him in a sudden fierceness and I couldn't help but think, There's the Jasper I know. A low moan escaped his throat, matching my own. The combined sound sent the electric current running through my body in a near frenzy, like I couldn't get close enough to him fast enough.

I heard the fabric tearing under our hands, and I was surprised at how not awkward I felt. It was completely natural to have him the way I had him now, like I had been doing it my entire life. A normal teenage girl would be embarrassed to have her body completely exposed in the way mine was, but with Jasper it was just...

Right.

He was a completely different person, yet exactly the same as our bodies tangled into one on the still unused purple blankets on my just-for-show bed. There was no caution, no restraint. Every touch was more than I was used to, and I couldn't believe how much I had been missing. It was hard to focus on anything with sensations so intense, pulling my attention to a million different places in my body every second.

I was burning.

And I didn't mind it at all.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Alexei: Was it too sudden? I felt like it was the right moment as I was planning it because tension would be running high and they would suddenly have to face the prospect of losing eachother, kind of forcing them to speed through the process of sorting out their feelings, but as soon as they did, it just... clicked, lol.

Anywho... that was awkward for me to write... being a teenage girl and all... yeah... I guess I'll start the next chapter now...